


one lifetime with you

by cynical_optimist, strangetowns



Series: not wisely, but too well [1]
Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff and Angst, Implied Violence, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Multi, Panic Attacks, Slurs, Swearing, Verbal Abuse, a lot of friendship because friendship is important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 07:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 130,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5408837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist, https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Human stories always talk about the happily ever after lasting forever. But I think there’s a certain beauty in knowing that happiness only lasts for as long as it wants to. And that’s okay. That’s special too.”<br/>-<br/>An AU in which magic exists, Freddie is a bounty hunter, Peter is skeptical, Ben’s not terribly sure what’s going on, and Balthazar has secrets bigger than words can tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Is this crack? Is this angst?? Who knows? We’re sort of just rolling with it, and we hope you enjoy the ride.
> 
> If all goes well, the update schedule will resemble something weekly.

It’s the first time the flat has eaten together in weeks.

Balthazar’s the one who cooked the food tonight, so he feels somewhat entitled to pride over this phenomenon. It’s amazing, honestly, the fact that they’re all seated around the dining table at the same time for once. Ben isn’t huddled up in his room skyping Beatrice, Freddie isn’t seated resolutely on the couch and going over her notes with her food left on the table barely touched, and Peter’s actually _there_. It is a welcome change from the silence that has felt more present in the flat than words, as of late.

“All right, but I still say a werewolf would make a better roommate,” Ben is saying. “They’re only dangerous one day a month, while vampires are dangerous, like, all the days.”

“You have no idea how dangerous real werewolves are, do you?” Freddie says, raising an eyebrow.

“But I just feel like werewolves give off a better aura, you know? I really just don’t think vampires would be fun to hang out with, what with their immortality shriveling up their cold heart and all. Especially if they just want to suck my blood.”

“No, but my point is, neither of them would make better roommates,” Freddie says. “No magical creature would make a good roommate.”

“They’d be more interesting than humans at the least, wouldn’t they?”

Peter shakes his head at this last statement. He doesn’t have to speak for Balthazar to know he’s thinking how ridiculous it is to be having this conversation when such a situation would never happen. Peter’s not really one for hypotheticals, not anymore. Balthazar knows the reason for that, too.

“So, Peter,” he says, his eyes on the table, “did you get the notes for the history lecture today?”

He can feel Peter look up at him. “Yeah, man, I noticed you weren’t there. I was going to text you, but…”

Balthazar knows why he didn’t text. “It’s okay.” He purses his lips. “Could you – “

“Yeah, sure,” Peter says with an enthusiastic nod he only needs to see from the corner of his eye.

“I wouldn’t trust notes from Peter,” Freddie says from across the table. There’s a smile on her face but her eyes are hard as flint.

Peter shoots her a sidelong glance, but otherwise ignores the comment. “I can send you a picture of them, if you’d like.”

“Nah, I’d rather copy them myself,” Balthazar says quickly. “If you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not.” There’s a brief pause in his speech, a beat of hesitation. “Do you need anything else, or…?”

“We can study some other stuff from class, if you’d like?” This might not be a good idea, and he doesn’t really know why he’s suggesting it in the first place. He can’t remember the last time they studied together. But if Peter doesn’t want to, he can easily refuse the invitation, can’t he?

Before Peter has the chance to answer, though, Freddie says, “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Peter’s head snaps toward her. “Excuse me?”

She shrugs. “You don’t strike me as a reliable person, that’s all.”

Peter narrows his eyes, and Balthazar feels the sudden tension like it’s crackling through his own veins.

“You’ve been to class, that’s more reliable than me,” Balthazar says with what he hopes is a conciliatory smile. It’s been a long day and he’s tired so he’s unsure at first if he can actually achieve such an expression, but Peter visibly settles down and Freddie doesn’t deign to respond, and he figures that’s about as much as he can ask for.

“Skipping class, Balthy? That’s rather unlike you,” Ben remarks. “If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were off to the woods for an impassioned tryst.”

Despite himself, his pulse beats a little faster. “Family emergency?” he tries. He feels a pang of annoyance in his gut; he hates how his words have somehow turned themselves into a question, even if what he’s saying isn’t actually that far from the truth.

No one else seems to find it suspicious, though. It seems they’ve already moved on.

“That is oddly detailed, Ben,” Peter is saying.

“Does Balthazar not strike you as a woodsy kind of person?” Ben demands, completely and utterly serious.

“Am I supposed to, like, actually answer this question? Like, genuinely?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t,” Freddie says, louder than the remark probably should be.

“What crawled up your ass and died today?” Peter says immediately, his head turning toward her.

“Do you want to find out?” Freddie says, unsmiling.

Balthazar wants to squeeze his eyes shut. Maybe if he doesn’t have to witness this, he can pretend it isn’t happening.

“Guys, why are you always like this?” Ben says, a trace of discomfort creeping into his voice.

“You should ask _her_ ,” Peter says. “She’s been on my case for no reason for weeks now.”

“You don’t want to know my reasons,” Freddie says, crossing her arms across her chest.

“As if any of us ever want to know anything about what you do,” Peter says, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, man, that was uncalled for,” Ben says. His fingers tap against the table almost incessantly, his leg bouncing up and down. “Don’t bring us into your – thing.”

After that, silence settles over the group again. Balthazar doesn’t feel silent, though. He feels on edge, even though he doesn’t really have anything to do with what just happened, not that he knows, anyway. He feels a need, almost burning, to get away from whatever precipice he’s on, though he can’t see it, and that’s probably what bothers him most of all.

“So, Peter, I can see your notes after dinner? We can head to your room?” Balthazar says tentatively.

“I think you guys should bring the notes out here,” Freddie says, her voice decisive.

“Wait, what?” Peter sounds disbelieving. “You can’t tell us what to do!”

“It’s not a good idea,” Freddie insists.

“Why are you so against me bringing people in my room? I can’t even bring my friends over anymore!”

“Yeah, I highly doubt they’re your ‘friends’,” Freddie says.

“Oh, don’t even start,” Peter snaps. “So that’s what this is about? That’s what you’ve been grieving about all this time? My god, if I’d known, we could have gotten this over with way sooner.” Freddie opens her mouth, but Peter plows on, undeterred. “I know you think I don’t respect myself. But honestly? It’s none of your _fucking_ business.”

“Yeah, it’s my business if you’re putting other people’s lives in danger,” Freddie says bluntly.

“Excuse me?” Peter’s voice turns into a shout. “That’s ridiculous!”

The sudden change in volume makes Freddie flinch, but she holds her ground. “You want to know why I’ve been treating you like this, then?” Freddie says, quietly.

Peter stares back, gaze hard and challenging.

“Someone in this flat is magical,” Freddie says.

Panic floods Balthazar’s lungs, thick and unbidden.

“And I think it’s you,” she continues, her eyes never faltering away from Peter. As quickly as it comes, the panic, the coldness crawling across his skin, is replaced with relief, strong, so overwhelming he almost chokes on it, and twinged with guilt, a feeling he can’t help and that he wish he could.

Peter’s eyes blaze as he gets up from the table, his chair scraping the floor loudly. “What the _fuck_?“

Freddie’s eyes widen. Her hands, both on the table, curl into fists, so tight the skin around her knuckles pales. It’s not a move of aggression or anger, though. No, to Balthazar, who knows the feeling more intimately than someone his age probably should, it looks like fear.

Peter, on the other hand, appears very aggressive and very angry at the present moment. “You can’t be serious. Look, I understand bounty hunting pays for your tuition. I don’t really get it, but like, fine, you do whatever. Either way, I thought you knew magic isn’t real. I guess you don’t. So whatever it is that’s making you believe in it? That’s bullshit. Grow up, Freddie, we’re not in primary school anymore.”

Freddie’s fists squeeze together more tightly. “Don’t go there, Peter,” she warns.

“Don’t go where? Don’t tell you that your silly delusions can get people seriously hurt? This kind of shit isn’t fun and games, Freddie, but I wouldn’t expect you to know that.” Peter’s breathing hard now, his cheeks red, and his voice has gotten louder with each subsequent word. His hands are in fists by his side, too, clenching and unclenching. His eyes flicker to Balthazar, and Balthazar feels his breath freeze somewhere in his throat, even as Peter looks away.

Freddie’s hands are shaking now, ever so visibly. “Peter,” she says. “Sit down.”

“Why? So I don’t tell you how stupid your fairytale fantasies are?” Peter says, gaze indignant.

Freddie bursts up, faster than any of them were probably prepared for, and slams her palms against the table. “If you don’t stand down, I will not hesitate to make you,” Freddie grinds out.

“Are you threatening me?” Peter says, narrowing his eyes.

“Try me,” Freddie yells, taking a fistful of Peter’s shirt and yanking him close to her face. Her other hand curls into a tight fist by her side.

Ben springs up then, too, yelling, “whoa!” Balthazar feels glued to his chair, stuck to it. He’s never seen Freddie exhibit strength like that, but he should have expected it. He should have been prepared for a situation like this.

Freddie and Peter don’t move.

“So? Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Freddie says, her voice unexpectedly calm.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Peter sounds vaguely strangled.

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“Magic doesn’t exist, Freddie!”

Freddie bristles, and her fist tightens in the fabric of Peter’s shirt. “You can come up with better excuses than _that_ , surely?”

“I know your family’s traditional and all, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow them if you don’t want to,” Peter says, desperation in his tone.

“Like I would do anything I don’t want to do,” Freddie spits. “Like hunting you down. I very much want to do that.”

“What the hell do you think I am, anyway?”

Briefly, Freddie hesitates, running her tongue over her teeth. She glances over at Ben, who meets her eye. Balthazar realizes, like a lightning strike, that he’s in on this too.

“An incubus,” Freddie says in clipped words.

Peter’s eyes widen, in shock at first, and then in fury. He looks over at Ben, then, though his head doesn’t move. “Ben, what the everliving _hell_?”

“I – ah…” Ben fidgets with his hands. “You _do_ bring people back really late, you know. And I don’t remember the last time I saw one of them leave.”

“That’s because Freddie flipped her shit the last time someone stayed for breakfast!” If Peter could throw his hands up, Balthazar knows he would. “Are you serious, Ben? After everything that happened last year? With Hero?”

“I…”

Balthazar has to speak. He doesn’t have the energy for it, not in the slightest, but he has to. It’s not his conversation, it’s not his fight, some part of him tries to say. The other part says, that’s bullshit.

“Succubi and incubi don’t exist,” Balthazar says quietly.

“Yeah? And how would you know that?” Freddie says, looking over at him suspiciously.

“We learned that last year, didn’t we, Peter, Ben?”

Peter looks pained. “Something like that.”

“That’s not proof in the slightest,” Freddie says.

“That’s a good point, though, Freddie,” Peter immediately counters. “What concrete evidence _do_ you have?”

She presses her lips together, clearly annoyed. Balthazar knows her options, and none of them look good.

“Okay, fine,” Freddie relents, though the edge is still present in her words. “If you’re not an incubus, surely you’re something else. A vampire, perhaps?”

“Freddie,” Balthazar says, “if you don’t know anything for sure, maybe you shouldn’t be starting fights at the dinner table. Just… Just putting that out there.”

“Also, magic _doesn’t exist_ ,” Peter says bitingly.

Every time he says that, some part of Balthazar’s heart clenches hard. It’s best Peter feels that way, though. Balthazar can’t forget what happened when he did believe in magic.

Though it doesn’t seem like she wants to, Freddie relinquishes her grip and pushes him away from her. Peter stumbles backward and shoots a disbelieving look at her, who meets his gaze steadily. He opens his mouth, shuts it again, clenches his jaw angrily like there aren’t words to express what he wants to say. And then he leaves, leaving his plate half-finished and slamming the front door behind him.

Freddie sits down shakily, a single trembling exhale betraying her previously collected state. Her fingers brush over a knife sheathed at her waist, almost like an instinct. Balthazar’s thoughts race, even though part of him feels like he has no right to try to figure out what it means. Was she nervous about the confrontation? Scared, even?

He hadn’t noticed the knife before, not until that moment. It’s a lapse in observation he can’t quite afford.

“Freddie…” Ben says uncertainly as he sits back down as well.

“So,” Freddie says, pressing her fingers to her temples. “I might have gotten a little carried away.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement, isn’t it?” Ben says, eyes widening. “Freds. You _threatened_ your _flatmate_. I know you said you’re a bounty hunter, but – ”

“I did what had to be done.” The slight tremor in her hands as she picks up her fork does not escape Balthazar’s notice.

“What could he have possibly done to you?” Ben retorts.

“I don’t – Agh!” Freddie puts her fork back down agitatedly. “So I panicked.”

“I’ll say,” Ben says.

“Why do you think there’s someone magical in the flat?” Balthazar asks, less because he wants to and more because he feels like he has to.

Freddie’s gaze flickers to him. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt to share.” She lifts her hand up and points at the heavy, old-fashioned ring on her middle finger. Balthazar has noticed that ring before. He remembers that the first time he met her, it was silver on the edges; now, it is entirely blackened. “Family heirloom. Also, a magic detector.”

It takes every ounce of control to keep his face still, carefully balanced between brief interest and skeptical indifference. He feels danger in his lungs, in his heart; he almost can’t breathe, for a maddening second.

“I don’t know, Freddie… I still think the whole thing is… you know,” Ben hedges. “Peter’s going to be mad at us for ages.”

“Look, you don’t have to be a believer to know I have a point,” Freddie says. “If he’s dangerous to us, it doesn’t matter what he feels. He’s got to go.”

“But – that was – really – “

“Intense,” Balthazar finishes. His heart still pounds.

“Yeah, aren’t you all about flat unity?” Ben says. “Because that was definitely not flat unity.”

“Exactly!” Freddie seems to have overcome whatever bothered her earlier, incensed now by what she thinks is right. “I’m not going to just stand by and let some _creature_ disrupt that harmony.”

“That’s really harsh,” Ben points out. “Even for you. And we don’t even know anything for sure, right? You said it yourself. You don’t have any concrete proof.”

Freddie pushes her hair out of her eyes. “Look, are you on my side or not, Ben?”

“I said you had a point, not that I was on your side!” Ben says, gesturing wildly.

“Maybe we need to, uh, have a meeting about this,” Balthazar interjects. He can feel a headache coming on at the edges of his temples, dark and cloudy. He’s interrupted too many times already, but this is important, and he knows he has to try. “And until then, it would be cool not to accuse anyone of anything, yeah? Or, you know, like, threaten each other? Flat truce?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, Balthazar, thank you,” Ben says, clearly relieved.

Freddie seems less pleased, but she nods once at the proposition before taking her now empty plate to the kitchen and heading out without another word.

Ben sighs loudly and takes his own plate in hand. He shoots an apologetic smile at Balthazar and heads off to his room.

The headache blossoms in his skull, full-force. He’s used to pain like this. It usually comes with the kind of exhaustion that results from exposure to tension. He’s not a fan of tension, really, actually sort of hates how it makes his heartbeat jump to uncomfortable rates, how it settles under his skin in a way that doesn’t quite fit, and how after it’s over it manifests in a bone-deep kind of tired that never quite stops lingering in the back of his mind. Even if he’s not a part of it, it never feels like he isn’t.

It took some effort to get Peter to eat dinner with them for once. Balthazar doesn’t know if he’ll ever want to again.

But he doesn’t have time to care about Peter right now, or about how tired he suddenly feels. He has a gig tonight, and he is not known to disappoint. He picks up the remaining dishes, his and Peter’s, and washes up by himself, pretending the warm water in the sink has the ability to calm his mind down. The silence in the flat stills his thoughts, and he can almost fool himself into thinking he feels nothing.

 

 

When Balthazar closes the flat door behind him, guitar slung over his back, his heart has not stopped racing. His fingers, calloused from hours practicing instruments of all kinds, clench tightly into his sleeves. There is a hunter in his flat, and everyone hates each other, and his head throbs with every step he takes down their winding path away from the flat.

There is a hunter in his flat. He has known this, of course, since they all moved in, when Freddie had announced her profession to Ben and Peter’s scoffs and his own sudden nausea. He knows, in theory, but the reality has never struck him quite so strongly until now. There is a hunter in his flat, and this hunter is willing to threaten her friend’s life for the sake of her cause. There is a hunter in his flat, and she would kill an innocent.

What would have happened if she had discovered him? What would the accusation have sounded like from her lips, his origins wrapped in derision and fear? He pretends he could have lied to her, convinced her she was wrong with blood rushing in his ears and fear thrumming through his veins, though attempts at persuasion have never been successful in more stressful situations. He can picture Peter and Ben’s reactions all too well—disgust and fear and “why didn’t you say anything last year, you could have helped, you could have done something”—and shuts his eyes briefly.

The darkness behind them beckons, and he sways, his reflexes just catching him from stumbling. Balthazar forces himself to keep his eyes open. He should have known better than to intercede in their conflict as much as he had, especially after that morning. It’s not often his conversations with Rosa result in such exhaustion, but this one was more trying than others, laced in warnings and subtle threats from powers greater than them both.

He continues walking, keeps his focus carefully on each step that he takes and the hard press of the guitar case against his back. Balthazar can almost feel the grooves in the path through his thin soles. He steps over a trail of ants nimbly and tries to remember if there are any groceries he needs to pick up on his return from uni tomorrow. Turning a corner, he goes over the songs he is to play and taps his fingers against his thigh as he performs them in his head. He begins constructing an argument for his next assignment.

By the time he arrives at Boyet’s, Balthazar’s head is clearer, each blink no longer threatening to send him to sleep. It's a cozy cafe, warm and inviting, the kind of place that Rosa would love. No one turns to him when he enters, focused on the girl in the time slot before him as they are. She sings a song he’s never heard before, but she’s skilled with both her instrument and her voice, so he smiles at her and orders a coffee. Her music seems to settle in his heart, warming it, and clears his head in the way that only music ever does.

“You’re the Balthazar who’s playing?” the barista asks him, and he nods. “Well, you’re up next, if you want to get your stuff ready.”

Balthazar nods again; he’s done this before, if not here, and knows the routine by heart. “Busy night?” he asks, and the barista shrugs.

“Less than some nights, more than others,” he answers. “It could be worse; I once served tea to the Queen of France, back before the republic. She was a nightmare to deal with.”

Balthazar laughs. “Right, right,” he agrees. The tension of the night sits uncomfortably under his ribs, but it’s easier to ignore with the quiet rustling of the customers and the woman’s soothing music filling his mind and warming his chest. The barista hands him his coffee, and he makes his way over to the stage, where seats are set up for performers who booked in advance. He nods at the only other person there, setting down his guitar and waiting for the woman to finish her set list.

The music washes over him, and he finds his tension beginning to dissipate under its influence. His heart still quickens at the thought of returning to the flat, but he has hours til then. Balthazar takes a sip of his coffee and lets himself relax a little, opening his guitar case in preparation.

“She’s good, isn’t she?” the woman next to him says, and he turns to her, his reply catching on his lips. She is tinged slightly green in the lighting of the café, a bright spark in her feline-like eyes. She blinks at him, tilting her head slightly. _Dryad_ , he thinks, blinking back. She gives him a small smile and turns her gaze back to the stage. “The performer,” she elaborates, when he gives her no answer. “She’s good.”

“Yeah,” he manages to say, barely hearing himself over his pounding heart. The dryad doesn’t talk to him again, and the woman finishes her last song. She ends with a bright farewell and leaves the stage, her guitar in hand.

“Good luck,” she tells him with a bright smile, as he steps up onto the stage.

Settling onto the chair on the stage, he plugs his guitar into the amp and adjusts the microphone to his height. “Hey, everyone,” he greets. “My name’s Balthazar. Hope you enjoy this.”

Whenever Balthazar lets himself become immersed in music, he becomes lost. Away fall responsibilities and pain and confusion, replaced by notes and chords and beats and melodies. He strums his guitar and sings and it is as if he is in another world, one not frequented by family responsibilities and love that is only painful by its absence and constant wondering how long it is before his secrets are revealed. With his music, he pours out the emotions that threaten to spill over the brim, bringing them to levels he can handle.

When he’s done, he can barely remember how he went, just that the audience seemed to like it. He is exhausted, but he manages a smile as he leaves the stage. His mind is clearer than before, headache resting dully at the base of his skull. As the barista climbs onto the stage and proclaims it open for any audience member that wishes to try their hand, he packs up his guitar, grimacing at his now-cold coffee but finishing it anyway.

He lifts the guitar onto his back, throwing the empty cup into the bin and checking the time on his phone. Just past ten. It’s likely that everyone actually in the flat is asleep, but he understands Peter’s decision to stay out. The thought of going back there, to Freddie’s disgust, fills him with a cold dread that settles heavily in his stomach.

Biting his lip, he starts a text to Peter, erasing it a moment later. He’ll want space after what happened, time away from anyone involved, and Balthazar asking him how he is won’t be welcome. He knows how he is; it’s better that he deals with it, with the emotions that had to have resurfaced after a scene so reminiscent of last year, on his own.

He considers sending Rosa a message too, but as soon as the thought crosses his mind he pushes it away. He's not in the mood to open himself up to that so soon, not when Rosa knows better than anyone else how to get under his skin, and not when he already feels so exposed.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost runs into someone; he looks up from his phone, with a quick step back. The woman who had performed so well stands, smiling, before him.

“Good morrow, friend of the trees,” she greets traditionally, and the reply comes to his mind, unbidden. Just catching himself, he keeps his features carefully still. His heart thrums rapidly under his skin, and he wonders absently how many times his adrenaline can physically spike in one night.

“Uh, what?” Balthazar asks, feigning confusion. He tenses, eyeing the door; he’s slower than others of his kind, but faster than a human, and he should be able to outrun her if she poses a threat. She won’t pull out a weapon in a public place, not when so few believe.

The woman laughs, extending a hand, and Balthazar flinches before he realises that it is empty. “I won’t hurt you,” she reassures him, and her eyes dart over to the other side of the room. He follows them, and finds his gaze resting on the dryad he’d encountered earlier, holding the woman’s guitar and smiling knowingly at him.

Balthazar has never been one for easy assurances, and the woman before him is certainly not fae. He adjusts his guitar on his back and looks again at the door; no one loiters near it, and the people standing in his way can easily be dodged.

“No offense intended _at all_ ,” she says, “but, if you are trying to hide at the moment, you aren’t doing a very good job, little elf.”

 

 

_When Balthazar is finishing his last song of his set, he looks up, catching his sister’s eye across the café. She grins at him encouragingly, grimacing at her cup of coffee which really can’t be that bad, and he snorts, missing a chord. He winces but continues to play the outro, not looking up again until the last chord fades. He dares another glance when it does, and she doesn’t seem to be judging him too harshly over the applauding patrons._

_“Thanks, everyone,” he says, glad his vague apprehension doesn’t bleed into his voice. Balthazar leaves the stage and carefully puts the guitar in his case, not extending the moment but in no rush to end it. It’s the first time Rosa has heard him play outside the careful secrecy of his first instruments, and, despite her frequent absences, there is a part of him that wants her approval._

**_Pluck up your hearts_ ** _, he thinks, remembering studying with Pedro the day before, and stands, pulling the case onto his back. Rosa’s still sitting there, coffee cup pushed away from her and probably half-full still. He can’t help but smile, just a little, despite his fear of being judged and found just as wanting as her beverage. Walking over, he greets some regulars with a soft smile and a pat on the shoulder on the way past. Rosa keeps her eyes on the cup._

_“You did well,” is her only greeting, looking up at him with a grin that borders on warm. Their kind has never been one inclined to dramatic displays of affection._

_“Thanks,” he says, looking at the cup on the table. “I know I’m no Mozart. Just a year thirteen doing what I love.”_

_“No,” she replies, bluntly. “I met Mozart, and his preferred instrument wasn’t a guitar.”_

_Balthazar snorts at that, daring to look up at her. “Really,” he says. “Thanks. And for coming, and suffering the coffee.”_

_Her nose wrinkles. “I’ve had better,” she says, ever the diplomat, “but I’ve also had worse.”_

_“It’s not that bad.”_

_Rosa rolls her eyes. “You would say that.”_

_“At least they have vegan options,” he points out. “I don’t think all the places you’ve been to can say the same.”_

_“I’ll concede on that point,” she says, but doesn’t touch the coffee._

_“So,” he asks before she can say anything else. “How have you been? You’ve been away for ages.”_

_“Good. I’m not going to tell you about my latest trips in detail, because you and I both know you’re avoiding the point here.”_

_Balthazar looks down at his hands. “Could I get a coffee, first?”_

_Rosa shrugs, so he does, smiling at the barista in the hopes that she hadn’t heard Rosa’s quiet grumbling. By the time he returns to his seat, the next musician is up, playing a cover of a song he’s pretty sure he heard on the radio with Pedro earlier that week._

_“Okay,” he says, seated and staring at the warm cup between his hands._

_Rosa sighs. “Look, you’ve had all the same warnings I have,” she begins. “More, if what I’ve heard is right.”_

_Balthazar nods carefully, slowly, not looking up._

_“And?” She lets the word hang for a moment. “Balth, I love you, but there are rules to this sort of thing.”_

_He looks up, then, and her eyes are filled with concern. It makes his heart ache, just a little. “They’re guidelines,” he says. “Just to make sure—“_

_“To make sure we don’t get hurt,” she finishes for him. “To make sure, when we leave or they leave us, we aren’t spending the rest of our days in misery.”_

**_I don’t care_ ** _, he wants to say, but doesn’t. “I just...”_

_His phone chimes then, and Rosa raises her eyebrows. Another chime rings out a moment later, then another._

_“You should check that,” she says._

_Balthazar takes his phone out and reads the messages quickly. Despite himself, his heart stumbles when he sees them._

**_From: Pedro Donaldson  
_** How did it go?

 ** _From: Pedro Donaldson  
_** That’s not even a real question.

 ** _From: Pedro Donaldson  
_** I know it went great; it was your gig, bro.

 ** _From: Pedro Donaldson  
_** I’m sorry I couldn’t be there!

_“It’s Pedro,” he explains, and hopes the smile on his face doesn’t make it into his words. “He just wanted to know how the gig went.”_

_“Pedro? Your human…friend?”_

_Balthazar makes sure his face is clear of any of his sudden joy when he looks up, tucking the phone away without texting him back. “Yeah, Pedro Donaldson.”_

_She tilts her head, grin playing at the corners of her mouth. “Mullet boy.”_

_“You remember him?” As far as he knows, Rosa’s only met him once, when he and Pedro were about fourteen or fifteen._

_“I follow him on Tumblr.”_

_“Oh,” Balthazar nods, taking a sip of his coffee and tapping out a reply._

**_To: Pedro Donaldson  
_** Thanks :)

_He puts his phone away at Rosa’s patient look. “I suppose you’ve read about his search for magic, then.”_

_“Indeed I have.” Her grin turns smug. “I’ve seen all the theories of the elven traveller, too. Some people are doing some pretty comprehensive research.”_

_Balthazar chuckles. “If they’re all as passionate about it as Pedro, I’m really not surprised.”_

_Rosa nods, and her gaze slowly turns serious. “You’re pretty close to him,” she says, edge to her voice._

_“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees. “But he doesn’t… he doesn’t know anything. None of them do.”_

_“You don’t think any of them have half a brain to figure it out?” she snorts._

_“None have yet.”_

_“You haven’t even been tempted to tell?”_

_He shrugs. “You have,” he says, quietly, recklessly. “I’ve read the legends.”_

_The look she gives him is sharp enough to cut glass. “That was over a hundred years ago and a mistake,” she says, voice like steel, “and a very low blow.”_

_“I’m sorry,” Balthazar replies immediately, feeling vaguely ill. He hates fighting Rosa, hates the centuries of pain he can bring up with a seemingly innocuous statement._

_“Not your fault.” Rosa sighs again. “But **surely** my example is one to be learnt from.”_

_“I don’t think Pedro—or the others—would ever—“_

_“So it is about Pedro,” Rosa cuts in, an obvious change of subject and a terrifying one._

_Balthazar takes another sip of his coffee before he answers, savouring the taste. “Yes.” He meets her eyes, and they are filled with a pity uncharacteristic of their kind._

_“Balthy…” she says, then looks down. “It’s hard enough with friends.”_

_“I know.”_

_She reaches out across the table and grabs his hand, squeezing it tightly, and his throat clenches. Elves are not known for physical affection. “You should come back at the end of the year,” she tells him. “It’s easier, in the long run. Come back before it gets difficult. You're only young.”_

_Balthazar breathes; in, out. It catches on the second, and he knows Rosa sees it. “I think,” he says carefully, “that it already is.”_

_Rosa’s lips press together into a hard line. “A mortal,” she says, and it comes out half a breath. “A mortal, Balthazar.”_

_Behind him, he hears the musician change again, this time to someone playing a ukulele._

_“Yes,” he answers, and Rosa’s fingers tighten around his._

_“You know what our parents would say.”_

_Balthazar forces himself to breathe again. “I cannot help but love my friends, and…”_

_“And it’s not like you can simply stop loving him.” Rosa shakes her head. “You have **duties** , Balthazar.”_

_“I know.”_

_“We’re… moving soon,” Rosa says, voice rising, words carefully chosen for their location. It’s easier to talk frankly with lowered voices, but she’s never been one to constrain her volume when arguing._

_He wishes she would just **stop** , just calm down. “I know,” he says again, pushing this wish into his words, and her eyes flash._

_“Don’t even try that,” she says, then, calmer, “But as long as you understand… do you want to go into the town, just mingle with the humans a bit? I think this will probably be my last visit with you before we leave again.”_

_Balthazar nods, and they leave the café in silence. After walking for a while, he clears his throat._

_“What if…” he begins, then trails off, studying the path in front of him intently. He can almost feel Rosa stare at him._

_“What if what?”_

_“What if I didn’t go with you?” he asks, and the words, uttered for the first time outside his head in his wildest fantasies, make his heart pound._

_Rosa swallows audibly. “No.”_

_Balthazar looks up at her, and there must be something in his gaze that upsets her. She looks away._

_“No,” she repeats. “You cannot abandon us for mortals. **You know your duties**. A nymph prince, maybe, could get away with this. Not an elven one. You know what will happen if you don’t return.”_

_“Yeah,” Balthazar sighs, and he looks back down. “I’m sorry.”_

_Rosa’s hand wraps around his wrist for half a moment before she lets go. “I’m sorry, too,” she says, though the issue is not so much with her as the situation, grown to proportions too great to control. “Now, sight-seeing? I still remember when we moved here—I was only about a century old, then—and it’s changed immensely since then.”_

_Balthazar forces a smile. He follows, silent, and his protests brim under his skin and scratch painfully at his ribs._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Marlowe for the words "Pluck up your hearts."
> 
> 11/01/2016: You can find some absolutely gorgeous hunter!Freddie edits [here](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/137060380805/someone-in-this-flat-is-magical-and-i-think-its), by the wonderfully talented niuniujiaojiao.


	2. Chapter 2

Balthazar looks toward the door again. "Elves don't exist," he replies automatically, despising the words even as he says them.

The woman laughs again, softly. "You don't have to fear me," she says again. "Magic never outs magic."

He steps back, away from her still-outstretched hand. "Who are you?"

"Oh!" She shakes her head. "I never introduced myself, did I? I'm Paige. Paige Moth. Student, witch, and girlfriend of Chelsey Long-- she's the dryad you met earlier."

A witch-- a human with a sensitivity for magic, often manifesting in one or more talents. He's met few in his life, but he can see it, now that he knows. "Empath?" he asks, thinking of the warmth her music had inspired in him. She nods. "And you know what I am."

"But not who you are," she adds. Her hand is still extended in front of her; it has to be getting tired.

He sighs. "Balthazar," he answers, taking her hand. It's warm and reassuring, just like her music, and he wonders just how strong an empath she is.

"Pleasure to meet you, Balthazar the elf. You're very talented."

Balthazar finds himself smiling. “Yeah, you, too."

Paige drops his hand and looks back at the dryad. "I don't want to keep Chelsey waiting, but she pointed you out to me and told me you looked surprised to find another magical in Wellington. I wanted to come over and introduce myself. There's a gathering this weekend, if you want to come?"

He hesitates. Sighing, he shakes his head. "I, uh, I-"

"What are you worried about?" she asks. "You're emanating fear."

Balthazar tries to constrain his emotions, as every elf is wont to do, and can't. He's never been able to, not as well as the rest of his family. "No, it's nothing," he assures her, and she raises her eyebrows.

"If you're sure," she says. "Walk with me to the door? Chelsey wanted to meet you properly."

There's no harm in it, he decides, and nods. Paige waves to the barista, who waves back, and she takes hold of Balth's arm to pull him with her. He doesn't protest.

"That's Kit," she explains quietly. "He's fae. Stayed behind when all the others left."

His strange mannerisms suddenly make sense, the devil-may-care, self-assured way of speaking typical of the fae. Before he can reply, though, they have reached the dryad, who bows her head slightly.

"Prince Balthazar," she greets. "How is your family?"

He shakes his head. "I, uh, I haven't visited since last year."

"Prince?" he hears Paige ask, as she draws her girlfriend under her arm, but he pays her no mind.

"Neither have I," Chelsey replies, and he lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. "Can we walk you home?"

The sudden change in subject throws him off-guard for a moment, but Paige is already nodding in agreement.

"I'm okay," he tries to say, but Paige and Chelsey are walking toward the door, and Paige still hasn't let go of his wrist. He could stop them, if he really wanted to, but they are the first magical beings he has met since arriving in Wellington that judge him for nothing-- not his lineage or his escape from it.

The moment they are out the door, Paige begins talking rapidly, and finally lets his wrist out of her grasp. "I've been trying to get him to join the astronomy club-- that's the magical community," she explains at  Balthazar's confused look. “We can’t exactly proclaim who we are for all the hunters to hear.”

“Yeah, I understand that,” he says. More than she knows.

Chelsey hums thoughtfully. "It would be lovely if you joined," she tells him. "Don't feel obligated, though."

"Oh, of course not," Paige agrees. "You might like to come along to try it, though."

Balthazar shrugs. "I'll think about it," he says, and knows that he'll probably agree by next nightfall.

Paige and Chelsey both grin widely; they know they've won, but it doesn't quite feel like he's lost. "I should give you my number, then," Paige says, and begins patting her pockets with her free hand, then Chelsey's. "Did I leave my phone at home?"

"We both did, I think," Chelsey answers. "Daisy will look after them.”

“Daisy?” Balthazar asks.

“My cat,” Paige answers. “She’s an exceptionally smart little feline.”

“Always been more of a dog person, myself,” he says.

Paige shakes her head in mock disbelief. “That is unacceptable.”

“Well, I guess we can’t be friends, then,” Balthazar sighs.

“How could you ever prefer dogs to cats?” protests Paige.

“How could you prefer cats to dogs?” he counters.

Chelsey sighs when Paige looks to her for an answer. “The number of times I have had those creatures defecate on my roots has turned me off them for life,” she says, and Paige nods triumphantly.

Balthazar shrugs, the corners of his mouth upturned. “Fair enough, I guess.”

Paige shrugs too. “Besides,” she says, “pigeons trump other animals every time.” She gives him a bright smile before turning back to her girlfriend. "Do you know where I put my pen?"

Chelsey giggles, and Balthazar almost feels like he's intruding on a moment. "It's in your hair, you silly human," she says, kissing her girlfriend's cheek and pulling the pen out of her bun in the same movement. Paige turns her face so that their lips meet sweetly, and Balthazar looks away.

"So," Paige asks a moment later, "which way next?"

Balthazar looks back at the couple. "Just down this road, then up a little trail. You really don't have to walk me all the way there."

Paige shakes her head. "We want to," she assures him. "It's not every day an elf  turns up in little old Wellington, and you look like you could use some friends."

Balthazar nods. He begins to walk more slowly, each step bringing him closer to the flat heavier than the last. He had forgotten, for just a moment, the terrible events of dinner. Now that he remembers, not even Paige's reassuring vibes can settle his nerves.

Paige frowns at him but doesn't say anything. Rather, she takes his arm, pushing the sleeve up, and writes a series of numbers on it in a messy scrawl. She tucks the pen back into her hair when she finishes. "Any time," she tells him, eyes grave. "If you want to get away from a situation or just talk, call me. Chelsey or I will answer."

He stares at the numbers on his arm for a long moment, then pulls his sleeve down. He nods again. "Thanks," he says. Before long, they are at the point where the road splits off into the trail, and he stops. "I'm okay from here, if you want to head home," he says. He doesn't want to bring them into the flat when there's a hunter residing within. "Really."

Paige and Chelsey look at each other, silently conferring, and Paige nods. "Okay," she says. "But I expect a call from you tomorrow."

"It was lovely to meet you," Chelsey adds, letting go of Paige to give him a warm hug. She smells of chlorophyll and dirt and it reminds him of home. "I look forward to seeing you again."

"Please call," Paige murmurs when she does the same. "There's something in that flat that frightens you, and I want to know if you're okay."

"Alright," Balthazar says, throat tight. She lets go of him and grins.

Chelsey twines their fingers together with her free hand and begins to pull her girlfriend away back down the road. They wave together, lifting their interlocked hands in a gesture of farewell, and Balthazar turns up the path. It is not until he is halfway to the flat that he realises there hadn't been even a hint of real conflict for the entire walk.

 

 

He expects to feel different as soon as he re-enters the flat. He expects the air of tension, even if no one is up, to still be present, to suffocate him. He expects to feel nothing in his heart except for tiredness.

What he doesn’t expect is Freddie sitting on the couch, laptop on her knees, blanket drawn up almost to her chin. It didn’t occur to him that she might be as affected as the rest of them by the evening’s events, but there’s exhaustion etched into the lines of her face, and he thinks maybe it should have. She looks up as the door closes behind him, her eyes unguarded for a brief moment. That surprises him more than it should, too.

“Oh.” There’s relief on her face, maybe. Or is it a certain kind of anticipation, worked up and torn back down when he didn’t turn out to be who she expected? A second later, her face is calm again. “Hi, Stanley. What’ve you been up to?”

Balthazar lifts his guitar off his shoulder and rests it against the couch. “Gig tonight,” he says.

“Really?” Her eyes widen. “Why didn’t you tell us, Stan? We totally would have come out to support you.”

He thinks about Kit behind the counter who once served tea for the Queen of France, and about Chelsey, skin visibly green even under the dim lights of the coffeehouse, and about Paige, her calming music and her knowing smile. He thinks he’s a bit glad that he didn’t invite Freddie, and then he thinks he should be guilty about that feeling, even though he’s not.

“Wasn’t a big event,” he says with a shrug. “Mind if I…?” Freddie nods at the open spot on the couch next to her, and he sits down accordingly. “Yeah, just an open mic night,” he continues. “There’s plenty of other chances to see me play, you know? Don’t want you guys to have to, like, waste your time on something like this when there’s other important things going on.”

Freddie purses her lips, and doesn’t respond.

“So, uh, what are you watching?”

Her eyes flicker back to the screen. “The 1967 film adaptation of _Dr. Faustus_ , as recommended to me by one Benedick Hobbes. No one in this flat watches enough Marlowe, according to him.”

Balthazar can’t help but smile a little, at that. “And how’s that going?”

She looks up at him, gaze serious. “It is, objectively speaking, the worst movie I have ever seen with my own two eyes.”

The statement is enough to surprise a laugh out of him. “So why are you still watching it, then? If it’s so bad?”

Freddie lets her breath out between her teeth. “This is sort of what I do, you know? When a day’s been… stressful. Bad movies take my mind off of things. And I don’t have to feel anything when I watch them.”

Balthazar feels a pang of sympathy, despite himself. He knows a little about not wanting to feel things, he thinks.

“Things were a bit intense today,” he says.

“Yeah.” She shakes her head a little, eyebrows scrunched together. “I just – the more I think about it, the worse I feel, you know? I think I panicked, and I shouldn’t have, and I took things too far and now I have no idea what Peter thinks of me.”

Balthazar doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s spent enough time trying to figure out what Peter thinks that he knows how futile such efforts are.

“I mean, like, I can’t let go of the idea that he’s probably dangerous,” Freddie goes on. “But maybe I wasn’t being fair. Maybe I should make it up to him, or something. But I don’t know how.”

“You’re waiting up so you can talk to him, aren’t you,” Balthazar says.

Freddie sighs. “Maybe.”

“I don’t…” Balthazar hesitates. “I don’t think he’ll be coming home tonight.”

“Yeah,” Freddie says, her tone resigned. “Figures. But I should at least try, you know? It’d be the right thing to do.”

And that’s the thing about Freddie, Balthazar thinks, the thing that’s so dangerous to him and yet that he somehow can’t begrudge. She just wants to do what’s right.

“Did you think threatening him like that was the right thing to do?” he asks quietly.

“I…” She sighs. “I don’t know. I was nervous. Or I was in danger. Or I was just scared. I don’t know if it was justified. I need to do better, though. In my line of business, losing your cool like that is more dangerous than anyone could ever be to you.”

“So is that the only reason you feel bad about it, then?” he pushes, as gently as he can.

“No!” She looks away uncomfortably. “It shouldn’t be, probably.”

Balthazar leans his head back and looks at the ceiling. “Well, uh, if you want my two cents, it just isn’t cool to be making assumptions like that based on people’s sex lives, you know?”

Usually, in this kind of situation, he’d try to keep out of it. He’d only try to interfere if it was absolutely necessary. But that’s the thing - this point, if nothing else, is necessary to make.

He doesn’t look at her, though she is silent. He can only hope she can see that he’s right.

“And,” Balthazar continues, “I think you were more dangerous to him than he could ever be to you.”

He feels her shift next to him before she answers. “He got really angry, though. I thought he might actually - ”

“No.” Balthazar shakes his head. “I don’t think he’d do something like that, Freddie. And anyway, incubi and succubi don’t exist.”

“I don’t see why I should listen to a non-believer like you,” Freddie says half-jokingly.

He closes his eyes. Non-believer, indeed.

“There was… a lot of drama last year,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I’ll spare you the details, but basically, shit happened, in a really bad way. There were - accusations. And, uh, Peter was a big part of that. Some people got really hurt, and our friend group wasn’t quite the same even after all the apologies, and - well, I think he blames himself for it, really. So that’s how we learned they don’t exist. The hard way, I guess.”

“Oh,” Freddie says, muted. “That makes a lot of sense.”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a while. Freddie doesn’t start the movie back up; she seems too lost in her own thoughts. Balthazar lets the exhaustion seep into the cracks of his body at last, all the emotional turmoil and anxiety draining out of his veins to leave behind a dull sort of emptiness. It’s not the kind of tired that would help him sleep. If anything, it would just keep him up.

“Can I join you?” he says into the silence. “I could use a bad movie, myself.”

Freddie looks over at him, then lets her lips break into a smile. “Come, Stanley Jones, Robert Burton’s ruggedly handsome face awaits you.”

They watch the rest of the movie, and Freddie keeps up a sarcastic running commentary throughout, and Balthazar doesn’t think about anything else the whole time, or tries not to. It’s a nice change, the emptiness in his thoughts. For once he doesn’t feel guilty about it.

When he gets back to his room, he doesn’t lay on his bed so much as he falls into it, and he pulls out his phone.

 **To: Peter Donaldson**   
_Are you doing okay?_

 **From: Peter Donaldson**   
_yeah fine thx mum_

 **From: Peter Donaldson**   
_dont wait up 4 me_

He closes his eyes at that, and wonders if Peter knows as well as he does how useless of a command that is.

Around seven, he can hear the flat door open and close gently. A few minutes later, there is a loud clatter in the kitchen, followed by muffled swearing. He’d already resolved not to get out of bed when Peter came back in, had already decided Peter didn’t need to know someone was awake listening for him, but for better or worse this just isn’t something Balthazar can bury like most of his other impulses, the urge to help Peter when he seems to be in need. It is an instinct, a silent tug of his heart he can’t stop himself from listening to; he can admit that much to himself.

He expects questions, maybe even anger, when he enters the kitchen. _Why are you awake at this time?_ Or _You didn’t wait up for me, did you?_ Or _What the hell are you doing here?_

Instead, Peter is leaned against the counter, fists pressed to eyes as he rubs the tiredness away, and there is a broken mug on the floor.

“I meant to make coffee,” Peter says.

“You should sit down,” Balthazar answers.

Peter doesn’t say anything else for a long while, even when Balthazar sets a steaming cup of coffee in front of him and sits next to him. Balthazar debates for a moment whether he should leave him be, before Peter’s awake enough to wonder why Balthazar is up. Or is there a possibility he’d want the company this morning?

Then, Peter says, “I almost didn’t come home.”

“Yeah,” Balthazar answers, resigned. “I know.”

Peter presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and lets out a noise of frustration. “It’s just – it’s all such _bullshit_. I shouldn’t have to put up with it.”

The irony of that statement would almost make Balthazar laugh, if it was remotely funny.

“Who would continue living with someone who threatened them like that?” Peter says, hysteria seeping into his voice. “Over magic, for fuck’s sake! I can’t believe Freddie actually buys that. I can’t believe I still have to deal with that kind of shit, after – after everything. You know?”

Balthazar knows.

“I’m not sure I’d blame you, if you wanted to move out,” Balthazar says. As hard as that would be, he doesn’t say.

“Yeah, but…” Peter laughs without humor. “Where would I go?”

It’s not the kind of statement Balthazar can really respond to, so he doesn’t. They sit in quiet for a few minutes, and Peter sips at his coffee.

“So I guess I’m stuck here,” Peter says finally. “With a flatmate who probably wouldn’t hesitate to slit my throat in my sleep. And Ben. And… and you.” Peter looks up at Balthazar, briefly, his eyes unhappy, and glances back down. “And the incubus thing – I just – I – _fuck_.”

Balthazar thinks back to the night before, Freddie wrapped up in blankets and looking just as tired and just as regretful, face illuminated by a computer screen.

“I think Freddie feels really bad about it,” he says.

“Bad feelings don’t do _shit_ , Balthazar,” Peter snaps. “I know that more than anyone.”

Balthazar swallows hard. “I think she was really scared.”

That gives Peter some pause. He presses his lips together, frowning at his empty coffee cup.

“I suppose I get that,” he says finally.

“She wants to talk to you, you know,” Balthazar says. “But I don’t think she knows what to say. I think she knows this isn’t a situation that can be fixed with an apology.”

“Right.” Peter snorts. “And I suppose it’d be the big thing of me to do, to let her talk to me.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Balthazar says with a shrug. “Just… something to keep in mind, I guess. If you’re going to stay...”

Peter is silent. Balthazar can feel him thinking about it, the whole thing.

“If I’m going to stay.” Peter breathes a laugh. “Honestly, it’d take a lot to get rid of me, wouldn’t it?” He glances over at Balthazar. “You sure you don’t want coffee? You look like you could use it.”

Balthazar gives a little shake of his head. Caffeine doesn’t affect him that much, not in the way that would be helpful.

“All the more for me, then.” Peter smiles, then, tired but genuine. “Thanks, bro.”

Balthazar blinks. “What for?”

“You always know what to say, it seems,” Peter says, solemn honesty in his eyes, like he actually believes what he’s saying.

Does he, though?

“Yeah, okay,” Balthazar says, and after that, when they’ve stopped saying anything meaningful, he goes back to his room. He sinks back onto his bed, more exhausted than he’s felt in a long while. He shouldn’t have used his powers so soon after the last time, and especially not after a sleepless night. But the tension in the flat - around Peter - right now is is almost tangible, like thick fog; it cannot be ignored. When things get like that, sometimes it’s easier to let himself do it, instead of fighting against the most fundamental of his instincts. Or, sometimes, it’s easier to just leave.

Maybe he should go to the gathering that weekend. That’s the last thing he thinks about before he falls asleep for real, what it would be like to be surrounded by people he could be himself around in a place that isn’t home. The idea feels like a faraway dream.

 

 

_Before Year Twelve, Balthazar used to eat lunch alone._

_To be honest, he doesn’t think he ever really minded that. Back when he was thirteen, when his family first sent him to the human realms as part of some endlessly complicated curriculum they had set for him, it was startlingly easy for him to become overwhelmed by the sheer number of humans that surrounded him all hours of the day, the blur of nameless faces and anonymous murmurs. Not that he didn’t have his fair share of friends, of course - humans had been easier to get along with than he’d thought - but he appreciated the moments of solitude when he could get them, the few opportunities to forget he had to pretend to be something he wasn’t. And he liked the lack of pressure that came with eating lunch alone – to know what to say, or when to laugh at a joke, or when not to make any noise at all._

_In Year Twelve, he meets a group of boys who loudly and enthusiastically accept him into their ranks, and after that he never quite finds himself eating lunch on his own. There’s Ben, tall and lanky even at sixteen, with a gap-toothed smile and a ridiculous sense of humor that has its own sort of charm, somehow. There’s Claudio, who has a friendly laugh and talks so enthusiastically about football Balthazar can’t find himself minding that he knows nothing of the sport._

_And there’s Pedro. That’s where it starts, really, if there is a start._

_He’s known Pedro for a few years now, well enough that they’ve had a few good conversations, but not much better than that. Though they haven’t talked all that much, Pedro’s is a presence he can’t help but be aware of, not all the time, but enough to know when they’re in the same room or not. It’s not that he tries to pay attention, not really; it’s more that Pedro is just the kind of person who’s hard to ignore. When he’s in a good mood, he lights up the whole room, and he’s almost never not in a good mood._

_It’s hard to know quite exactly how it happened. Balthazar thinks he might have been telling a story to someone next to him. Before he knows it, Pedro, who sits in front of him, has turned around and started to listen._

_One story blooms into a conversation, and by the end of it, Peter says, “Listen, you wanna grab lunch with me and some friends? It’ll be fun.” It’s the way he says it, Balthazar thinks, how decisive and welcoming his voice is. And it’s the grin that accompany his words, like he has no secrets to hide, that makes it impossible to say no to him._

_And that’s how he meets the others. It’s not a special story, this beginning. There are no fireworks, no background choir singing, “You’ve found your best mates!” It just – happens. It’s so human Balthazar is almost surprised he doesn’t mind giving up lunch by himself._

_Their first lunchtime conversation, starting out in a very typical fashion for teenage boys, takes an interesting turn when Pedro says, in a hushed voice, “I think my neighbor’s a faery.”_

_Balthazar frowns. “That’s not a nice thing to call someone.”_

_“No, no!” Pedro shakes his head emphatically. “I mean, like, in a magical way.”_

_“No way,” Claudio says, but his eyes are widening._

_“Oh, uh, you guys believe in magic?” Balthazar says._

_All three boys nod at once._

_“Oh.”_

_“What, do you not agree?” Pedro teases, knocking his shoulder into Balthazar’s._

_“I mean, I wouldn’t say I don’t believe in it, but I wouldn’t say I do, either,” Balthazar says carefully. Perhaps these are the kind of people he’d be safe around, but years of experience have made him cautious, and he’s not about to lose that restraint for some boys he’s only just met. “Maybe… if you made a good argument, then yeah, I’ll consider it.”_

_“Well, I’ll just have to come up with a good argument, then,” Peter says, the promise of a challenge dancing in his eyes._

_The rest of lunch break, Pedro and Claudio and Ben all try in vain – to their knowledge, at least – to convince Balthazar that they’re right. Balthazar finds it exceedingly difficult sometimes not to laugh at their sometimes wildly wrong assumptions about the magical world, or to correct them. He can’t give himself away, not in the slightest, but it’s so difficult when the whole thing is so amusing._

_They have to drop it eventually, when the class bell rings, but in the last few minutes of class, when the teacher has given up on them and they have time to themselves, Pedro turns around in his seat and says, “Why don’t you believe in magic?”_

_It’s complicated, Balthazar thinks. It’s also a lie._

_“I told you, I don’t believe or not believe,” he says, shrugging his shoulders._

_“But that’s practically the same as not believing,” Pedro complains._

_“Why do **you** believe in magic?” Balthazar counters. “Isn’t it sort of – I dunno…” He tries to remember what someone who really didn’t care for magic would say about it. “Old-fashioned?”_

_Pedro’s eyes light up. “I guess, but… You know, some people and some things – they’re too amazing for magic **not** to exist, yeah? The world is too beautiful. And I dunno, I just think it makes sense. Some things can’t be explained. And that’s what makes them amazing.”_

_It does something to Balthazar’s insides, something he can’t quite name, to hear someone talk about his reality and his life like that, so openly and so passionately. He’s never met anyone who looked at magic like that, like it was the cause of beauty and goodness, and not of grief and danger._

_“Makes sense,” Balthazar says with a sensible nod. “Still have to do better than that.”_

_“Aw, really?” Pedro pulls his face into an exaggerated pout. “Claudio and Ben believe me!”_

_Balthazar laughs. “Maybe someday, you’ll convince me.”_

_“Yeah. Someday.” Pedro smiles, his eyes far away and dreaming of a future. Balthazar doesn’t know what he sees in that future, can’t know. But some part of him, for some irrational reason, hopes it’s a future with him in it. Even now, it’s hard to imagine a future where they aren’t friends, not in the human world, anyway. And there are some things that elven instincts just get right._

_Some things, though, they don’t. It is a lesson Balthazar will learn not too long from now, standing in the living room of a tearstained girl, frozenly watching the backs of some of his closest friends leaving the rest of them behind in a storm of screams and anger, and feeling like the floor’s spiraling from under his feet for no real reason except for the fact that he just hadn’t seen it coming. But in Year Twelve, “someday” is a word that holds little concrete meaning, and it’s almost too easy not to think about it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trailer for the movie mentioned can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I90YtG4pqhY), and we cannot recommend it enough. Please watch it. Please.
> 
> 16.01.16: Another glorious edit by the lovely [niuniunjiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/) can be found [here](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/137189026230/you-know-some-people-and-some-things-theyre) <3


	3. Chapter 3

Balthazar calls Paige at the next opportunity, as she asked. Though he can’t see her face, he can practically hear her smile in her voice when she greets him through the phone.

“Balthazar! Are you doing all right?”

“Yeah, everything’s okay,” he says, and it’s actually true-- as true, at least, as it can ever be for him. “Promise.”

“All right, if you promise,” Paige says with a laugh. “So what’s up?”

“I was thinking… well…” He closes his eyes, inhales. To hell with it, really. “You mentioned something about astronomy club the other day?”

“Yeah?” The syllable is drawn out, hesitantly hopeful.

He exhales. “Uh, where’s it meeting, exactly?”

“So, what I’m hearing is, you’re going to come this weekend?”

“Not like I have anything better to do with my time, right?” Balthazar tries to joke. He hopes it doesn’t fall flat.

“Ah, I’m so glad you decided to come!” Paige’s voice spills over the phone receiver in a flood of excitement. “It’s at the south garden on campus, but we can meet at Boyet’s? Work up to it, if you’d like?”

He finds himself nodding before he remembers he’s on the phone. “Yeah, yeah sure,” he says.

“Great! I can’t wait to see you!” She sounds like she really means it. “You won’t regret it, I promise.”

Balthazar hopes, briefly, that she’s right. “Yeah, thanks.”

When he hangs up, though, he finds that the worst of his thoughts can’t make him doubt her words. It’s incredible that he could feel her energy like that, even just over the phone. He has to wonder how powerful she is, if she even thinks about what she does, if feeling the push and pull of emotions are as innate to her as breathing. At some point, he almost forgot they weren’t even in the same room.

He’s looking forward to the gathering, and he’s mildly surprised at the revelation. The memory of it feels present throughout the rest of the week, during his classes or studying, but it doesn’t hover over him like a fear. He _wants_ to meet other people who are like him, even if it doesn’t end up panning out. It’s worth a shot, he thinks. He’s spent enough days and months in Wellington not knowing what else was out there in the city; it’s about time he found out.

And it probably helps that he actually wants to get out of the flat, if only for a bit. Not because of anything his flatmates have done, not really. They’ve all settled into some semblance of normality, but though no one’s actually spoken to him about it in a few days somehow he can tell they still aren’t quite talking to each other. He doesn’t really have the energy these days to worry too much about it, just smiles whenever he sees one of the others around - Ben curled up on the couch skyping Beatrice or fussing over Latin flashcards at the dinner table, Freddie’s hands curled around a coffee cup with her hair piled high on her head in the early mornings, Peter frowning at his phone or intensely focused on a book for class - and leaves them to their business. They don’t need him to worry about them, anyway, and probably wouldn’t want him to. Better to just leave it alone, both outwardly and inside his head.

It would be nice, he catches himself thinking sometimes, if they were as close as it seemed like they would become when they first met. More than that, it would be easier, and it would be fun. He wouldn’t mind spending more time with any of them. But, things having turned out the way they have, he doesn’t feel inclined to push for something none of them particularly seem to want at the moment.

Balthazar leaves the flat for Boyet’s that weekend, and it’s quiet, in the streets and in his thoughts. He takes in a deep breath, another; shoves his hands deep into his pockets and walks. The way almost feels familiar now, even though he’s only been once or twice. He has a feeling he’ll find himself walking it even more often, from now on.

When Balthazar arrives at the coffee shop, Paige and Chelsey are standing with the fae barista, Kit. Paige waves him over and greets him with a tight hug. Chelsey does the same, and Kit waves, an odd movement that is somehow simultaneously awkward and graceful.

“This is Kit,” Paige introduces. “Like I said, he’s fae.”

“Prince Balthazar, is it?” Kit asks.

“Yeah, but, uh, just Balth is fine,” he says.

“I think I met your grandad like, a few thousand years ago?” The faery nods, contemplative, then holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you, too, man.”

Balthazar shakes his hand and tries to see his age in the way he acts, the ages of the world spent as the only fae left in the human realm. There is nothing to suggest he is any older than the rest of them. To any passing them on the street, he is a normal young adult, if a bit odd.

Paige grins. “Well, now that that’s all set, let’s go.”

They walk to the garden together, Chelsey and Paige still wrapped around each other, and Kit hangs behind them with Balth. They walk in companionable silence for a few minutes, Chelsey and Paige giggling ahead of them.

“They are too sweet,” Balthazar comments.

“Yeah,” Kit says with a laugh. “As much as I like their company, I figured it’d be good all around if I just, you know, hang back here. Anyway, what better way to meet an interesting new friend?”

“Ah, you think I’m interesting,” Balthazar says, smiling. “Flattering, if not misguided.”

Kit shrugs. “You’re a prince of the elven kingdom,” he says. “Not every day we get a customer like that.” Balthazar resists the urge to flinch at the sound of his nobility being thrown around casually in a public space. Kit looks unbothered, though, and Balthazar supposes he has reason to be. The street they’re on is still, almost completely void of other people.

“I must be doing something wrong, if my heritage is the most interesting thing about me,” Balthazar says.

“An elven prince who absolutely kills it on the guitar,” Kit amends. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

Balthazar shrugs. “Where did you learn how to make perfect coffee?”

Kit raises an eyebrow. “Trade secret.”

“Exactly.”

Kit laughs softly. “Point taken. But seriously, you should come to open mic nights more often. It’d really liven up the place. Not every day you see an elf sing like you do, you know? Or at all, even.”

“You sure do know how to give out compliments.” Balthazar lets a corner of his mouth lift up.

“Hey, do you want me around or not?” Kit says, smirking.

“Depends. You want to be around?”

“I’d reckon so, yeah.”

“Then I gladly accept your companionship,” Balthazar says with a wide grin. Kit tosses his head back and laughs. It’s a pleasant laugh to listen to, the kind that lacks self-consciousness and rings with truth. Balthazar almost feels like joining in.

“So,” Kit says after a beat of silence, “you going with all the elves?”

Balthazar shrugs. “Not sure, you know?” he says, and it’s the first time he’s admitted that to anyone other than himself. His heart pounds violently.

Kit nods. “Fair enough, man. Not everyone is ready to leave the human world.”

He looks up at him for a moment, considering. “You weren’t,” he says after a moment, careful, and the faery throws his head back and laughs.

“Don’t be so cautious, man,” he says, once he’s done. “Ask what you wish. Everyone is so careful with their questions these days.”

Balthazar hesitates. “Well, uh, what made you stay?” he asks finally.

Kit squints at the sinking sun for a moment. “Banishment, for one,” he answers. “Coulda still gone if I wanted to, though. Guess I didn’t like the rules and riddles.” He turns to Balthazar then, and he can see every year of his age in his eyes. “You feeling a bit unsatisfied with your lot?”

He shrugs again. “Just considering,” he says, heart kicking at his ribs.

The faery nods. “Well, I’m here to talk if you need it.”

Paige and Chelsey turn to them, still walking. “You two alright back there?” Paige asks, grinning. “We’re almost there, and Hermia just texted me; it’s starting.”

By the time they arrive, the garden is filled with creatures, some passing as human, many less so. The telescopes scattered around the garden are barely used, more for show than practicality. Paige drags him between them, leaving Chelsey and Kit behind to talk to some dryads. There are so many new faces that he can hardly distinguish between them, especially in the dark. These include:

A witch wearing a ripped skull t-shirt, who only introduces himself as Hamlet before scowling at Balthazar in something akin to confusion. “A necromancer,” Paige whispers as they walk off. “Sort of. He can sense death.”

A pixie, Hermia, or maybe Helena, who has honey on her tongue and knives in her smile. “A really lovely girl,” Paige assures him.

A werewolf, Othello, whom the other beings steer away from. “There have been…issues with his changes,” Paige says, once they are out of earshot.

A banshee who spends the entirety of their conversation glaring at Othello over Balthazar’s shoulder, Emilia. Her face is scarred deeply, as if she had stood in the way of something with claws. “Very loyal,” Paige tells him as they walk away. “If you befriend her, she’ll do anything for you.”

A dragon, Mac, curled up at the feet of a witch named Beth, or Bella, or something like that. She doesn’t smile at him and neither does the dragon, but the cold, greedy spark in their eyes is identical. “You’ll want to stay away from them,” Paige mutters, and jumps when the dragon snorts fire. He considers saying something, easing the tension, but then Paige is dragging him away to another creature.

A naiad whose name evades him, who seems to see through him. “I don’t think she was always a naiad,” Paige muses, and the naiad wrings some water out of her hair, flowers interwoven through the strands.

Juliet, a gorgon who wears dark glasses but bright clothes and smiles shyly at everyone she meets. “She’s our youngest,” Paige says. “Her nanny brought her here.”

A doppelganger, Vi, who changes appearance every few seconds but seems to have the same outgoing personality in each one. “They make sure to stay away from more incriminating situations,” assures Paige.

Another witch, Portia, who smiles at him cunningly. “Take care not to do what she says,” Paige whispers. “She can talk her way around anything.”

An imp named Puck who spends the entire time jumping between groups and tying their shoelaces in complicated knots. “Hold onto your phone,” Paige warns.

A satyr named Peter who continually leers at a dryad speaking to Chelsey. “He’s sort of an ass,” Paige admits.

The aforementioned dryad, Katie, who ends up in a shouting match with Peter by the end of the gathering. “Don’t try to argue with her,” Paige tells him, and he wants to calm the pair down but knows he shouldn’t.

Helena, or Hermia, another pixie, who waves happily and seems at first glance to be less dangerous than the other. “You don’t want to get lost with the two of them,” Paige mutters, and he reconsiders.

There are others, of course, milling about and staring at the stars, but it’s a challenge to remember all of them. His first few years, before his parents started putting him into the human world, were a flurry of diplomatic faces and names he couldn’t pronounce. He’s out of practice, though; he’s grown too used to living with the same people. It takes more effort to remember each person that he encounters. He doesn’t know how he feels about that.

The magic in the garden is almost tangible, darting around the beings and, occasionally, manifesting itself in sparks of light and sound and colour. Balthazar hasn’t seen anything like it since the last elven festival, a year ago. The festivals are the only time he has ever seen them partake in any kind of frivolity. The magic dances around everyone present, nestling in hair or under arms and lighting up inhuman faces in an ethereal light. He wonders what would happen if someone were to arrive and see them, but surely they would not dare to hold such gathering if there was any danger.

“Wards,” Paige explains, when he asks. “A few witches and Kit keep humans from coming in or seeing what’s happening. It’s a pretty secure system.”

“Has anyone ever gotten past them, though?” he presses, thinking of Freddie and her detector and weapons and fear.

Paige shrugs. “Not that I know of. I can probably ask around, though.”

He shakes his head, “Nah,” he says. Freddie won’t find them, surely. He’s heard legends of the strengths of fae wards. They’re safe. He’s safe.

No one lets him spend more than five minutes alone, which is almost suffocating but not quite, filling him with warmth despite the lack of a moment to think. They rotate, as if on a roster.

First it’s Chelsey, swaying slightly in the breeze but still warm and smiling. “Enjoying yourself?” she asks.

“Yeah, yeah,” he nods.

“Me too.” When he looks down, she isn’t wearing shoes and her toes seem to have disappeared into the grass.

Then it’s Paige, greeting everyone by name, even in the middle of their conversations. She knows just when to frown or smile or laugh to say something comforting, and her power bleeds into her every action.

“Doesn’t it, like, tire you?” he asks her, when her short conversation with a centaur has ended. He thinks of the bone-deep exhaustion he’s felt for days, his almost compulsive need to solve every argument that begins near him.

She shrugs. “Not really. If there’s strong negative emotions, it drains me a bit, but the positive emotions just feed right back. It’s great.”

“How does that work?” he asks.

“No idea.” She grins at him brightly. “Maybe just surrounding myself with lovely people such as yourself.”

There’s Kit, with his ridiculous stories that can be nothing but true.

“Okay,” Kit says. “So, about five hundred and fifty years or so ago, I’m flying up the Nile-- I still had my wings, then, you see-- and this thing as big as my head shoots past me. I follow it, cause I had nothing else to do that day, and it flies into this little cave. I can’t fit, but it didn’t really matter because ten of them fly out at me, and then--” Here his words are rendered indecipherable by laughter, and Balthazar only catches the tail end of, “so that’s how I met the naiad queen.”

There are a wealth of other beings, who give him the history of the group and information on the magical haunts of Wellington. Boyet’s, as it’s dryad-approved, is popular, as is the south garden, but so are many other places. He stays quiet, on the most part, despite the small squabbles around him. They ask him questions, about his heritage and his sister and his level of integration into the human world, and it’s not terrible. It’s even sort of nice, to meet others like him.

He doesn’t feel at home, exactly, not by a long shot, but he’s more relaxed than he has been in a very long time.

 

 

Balthazar wakes up the next morning from a dreamless sleep. He doesn’t feel well-rested, exactly, or not tired, but the heaviness that usually accompanies the morning after a long night, in his head or his gut or both, isn’t there. He blinks up at his ceiling, the soft patterns of light the sun streaming in from the open blinds makes on the plaster, and he feels, inexplicably, that maybe his mood today will match the weather outside, for once.

Almost instinctively, he reaches for the phone next to his bed and scrolls through his messages.

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _hey u doing okay?? i know u got back late last night_

 **To: Paige Moth  
** _Yeah, not doing that bad, surprisingly_

 **To: Paige Moth  
** _I thought for sure the debauchery was going to fuck me up_

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _‘debauchery’ balthy, we would *never*_

 **To: Paige Moth  
** _Uh huh_

The conversation dies out after that, but he finds himself smiling a little to himself as he brushes his teeth. Last night was – a change. He’s not sure he’s ever been much of one for change – or large parties, for that matter – but it doesn’t seem like he minds it that much, this time around. It wasn’t his usual crowd, and he can only remember the last time he went out with great difficulty. But he remembers the blurred lights and the people he met, enraptured in their own joy and freedom, and he thinks about the way he could say his name - his real name - to people without explanations, and what it’s like to be truly and wholly yourself without a single obligation attached to your existence, and he figures that at least is probably worth smiling about. He’s never felt that way before, or if he has he can’t remember anymore; he can admit that with confidence.

When he returns to his phone, there’s a new message waiting for him.

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _u free at some point? chels wants u to come over_

 **To: Paige Moth  
** _What, and you don’t?_

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _:P_

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _u need to meet daisy!!!! this is v important_

 **To: Paige Moth  
** _Oh well if it’s *that* important_

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _also i need u to help me with a song_

 **To: Paige Moth  
** _why Miss Moth we’ve only just met, don’t play with my heart_

 **To: Paige Moth  
** _I’ll text you whenever I’m free, if that sounds good?_

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _^_^_

He stops by the kitchen for a quick snack before heading to class. Peter steps out just as he’s about to go in, and they meet eyes for a brief moment, too quick for Balthazar to consider trying for an awkward smile. By the time he’s decided, Peter’s already out the door.

How many times have they passed each other by like this? He almost holds onto the thought, almost spends more time than he should turning it over in his head, but then he steps out the door into sunshine and he lets the warmth ease the clamour of his thoughts, and he doesn’t think about that question anymore.

Class passes him by fairly quickly – two lectures, today. He works hard. He takes careful notes, and he doesn’t doodle in the margins, and he even asks a question or two in front of the whole class. It’s a good day. His head is clear, and his heart is at ease. It’s almost surprising.

By the time he returns to the flat, a coffee in hand, the light in the sky is beginning to fade. He lets himself in, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. The living room is empty, though he can hear someone puttering around in the kitchen, and he debates just going into his room. He hasn’t properly interacted with anyone in the flat in several days.

Sighing, he sets his bag down and makes his way into the kitchen. There, Freddie is just putting a bowl away, tea towel over her shoulder, and she turns to him, nearly dropping it in shock.

“Do you have to walk so quietly?” she complains. “I thought my parents were bad. Jesus.”

Balthazar laughs awkwardly, setting his coffee on the counter and moving to the fruit bowl. “Sorry,” he shrugs. “I just—it’s not something I mean to do, you know?” He grabs an apple, glad that he had been the one to pick up the groceries that week.

“Yeah, fair enough. So where have you been the last couple of days? Feels like I haven’t seen you around nearly enough.”

He stills, apple halfway to his mouth. “Out,” he says. “I, uh, made some friends at Boyet’s the other night and they convinced me to join the astronomy club.” He hopes that that explanation is enough for her suspicious mind, that she won’t start inquiring into exactly who he’s been associating with.

“Boyet’s,” she hums. “That’s a coffee shop, right? That’s where that coffee is from?”

Balthazar nods. “Yeah, I’m friends with the barista.”

Freddie grins. “A _friend_?” she asks. “Did you meet a boy, Stanley?”

“Uh, sort of?” he says. “But, like, a _friend_. No romantic stuff, I’m afraid.”

“Right, right,” Freddie says, and it’s obvious she doesn’t believe him. He wonders what it says about her, that she won’t bat an eyelash at his most outrageous falsehoods but refuses to accept it when he tells the truth. He wonders what that says about him.

He doesn’t contest her, finally taking a bite of the apple. It doesn’t taste anything like the apples of home, but it’s dryad-produced, so it’s close.

Freddie squints at him. “Oh, come on, Stan,” she complains after another minute. “Just a little bit of gossip?”

Balthazar could let her believe that he is dating someone. He thinks of Peter, tragically, blissfully mortal, the hesitance and endless lines between them, one drawn the moment another is crossed. He could say “My friend’s name is Kit,” and leave it at that, and let the news of his new “boyfriend” spread through the flat. He thinks of Chelsey and Paige, happy and in love, teasing each other good-naturedly as if they have nothing to fear of the future.

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “There’s nothing to gossip about, really.”

She sighs. “That’s so boring, Stanley Jones. I will get to the bottom of this.”

 _Please don’t_ , he thinks. “Why are you so interested in my love life?” he teases instead. “Do you have someone hidden away?”

She goes bright red, a phenomenon he’s only seen in humans. “ _No_ ,” she insists, sounding scandalised, and Balthazar can’t help but laugh. After a moment, she joins him.

It’s nice, being able to just laugh with someone, even Freddie. He’s never felt more alive than when he’s happy. When Freddie laughs, the dangerous lines of her face and glint in her eyes fade. That’s the thing about humans--they are so incredibly complex. They can be hunter and friend, instigator and peacemaker, belligerent and apologetic, all at the same time.

“So, uh, how have you been?” he asks, once their laughter has died and breathing evened out.

Freddie shrugs, suddenly serious. “Not my best,” she says. “Guess that’s what happens when you physically threaten your flatmate. Also my mum called, and she’s never fun to deal with.”

The events of the other night had just begun to fade from Balthazar’s mind, overshadowed by magic and not having to hide and the euphoria of making a friend that might understand. Now, the memories resurface. “Parents aren’t always,” he says, and focuses on the dealings he’s had with his own. Somehow they are less real, less immediate, and thus less painful.

“Yours difficult sometimes, too?”

“Yeah,” he answers, and leaves it at that. He thinks of the hours spent under his father’s watchful eye, staff rubbing callouses into his hands in places he never thought he’d need them, hitting posts and stones and dryad-less trees, because he’d refused to lift a weapon against another sentient being. The callouses are still there, but he can’t explain that to Freddie.

The silence stretches out between them, but Balthazar can’t bring himself to break it. He considers leaving the kitchen again, going over his lecture notes in his room, but Freddie clears her throat, stopping him.

She shifts on her feet, playing with the towel still slung over her shoulder. “Do you—” she starts, then sighs. “Have you spoken to Peter?”

He nods. He thinks of the conversation—Peter’s fury and pain and the awful feeling in his chest at the fact that he couldn’t do anything to help, not really. Freddie’s actions were deplorable, even if he understands her motives. Even if he sees the frightened friend underneath the hunter.

“I keep trying to catch him—I want to apologise, but he won’t speak to me,” she says. “I mean—I understand _why_ , but…”

Balthazar doesn’t know what to say to that. “Maybe just give him space,” he suggests, and the words drain at his newly replenished stores of energy.

“Yeah, maybe,” she sighs, reaching up to rub her eyes, and he realises with a flash that she isn’t wearing her ring. Freddie blinks at his shocked stare for a moment before looking away. “I didn’t think it was right,” she explains, “to wear it after that. If Peter isn’t an incubus, then I don’t know if it works. No one in the flat could be magic; Ben is most definitely human. You’re too lovely to be anything but.”

That causes a twinge of pain deep in Balthazar’s chest, slowly pulsing out past his ribs. “Um, thanks,” he says, because there is nothing else he can really say. He knows Freddie’s prejudices, has seen them sharp and loud. This should not surprise him in any way.

“Yeah,” she gives him an awkward smile. “I guess I have to be more careful about who I accuse of being magic in the future.”

“Guess so,” Balthazar replies, and his heart pounds. He hopes it doesn’t show on his face.

“Anyway,” Freddie says. “I have an assignment to work on, so I’d better get stuck into that.” She walks out of the kitchen, leaving him alone with his apple and his thoughts.

Ignoring the awful twisting in his stomach from the conversation, he throws the apple core in the bin and leaves, too. Picking up his bag again, he heads over to his room. Perhaps that’s enough of flat unity, just for the night. It always takes more out of him than it gives.

 

 

_When Balthazar, Ben, and Pedro arrive in Wellington, Ben is the first out, vaulting himself out of the back seat like a bat out of hell._

_“We’re here!” he shouts at the sky, and Pedro rubs his eyes, turning off the car._

_“God,” he groans. “He’s so **loud**.”_

_Balthazar huffs a laugh, barely opening his eyes. There had been so many tense moments on the journey, interwoven with the periods of joy and wonder at the scenery. He can’t blame either of them, not when they’ve been stuck together for over eight hours, but he really just wants to sleep._

_“Come on bro,” Pedro says, reaching out to touch his shoulder hesitantly. “We have to go sometime.”_

_“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees, opening his eyes fully and sitting up in the seat. “We should meet Freddie.”_

_The three of them walk together up the path to the house, following the directions on Ben’s phone, and Balthazar marvels at the sheer amount of nature surrounding the flat. It won’t be fun to get their luggage up, sure, but the scenery makes it worth it. There might even be dryads in some of the trees, depending on their origins. While they walk, Pedro’s shoulder brushes his, and he grins at him, happier than he’s seen him in a while._

_“What do you think she’s like?” Pedro asks him quietly. “Freddie.”_

_“Um, I don’t know,” Balthazar says, just as quietly. “Maybe she’s a fanatic of some kind.”_

_“A butterfly collector.”_

_“A dog rights activist.”_

_“A beekeeper.”_

_“A book duster.”_

_They’ve been through this before, each suggestion more ridiculous than the last, but that conversation ended tensely when Ben suggested “a wood nymph of some description”. It’s become simpler to steer away from that topic in the last few months._

_Freddie stands on the veranda of the house, arms crossed protectively over her chest, bright red hair piled on top of her head. She waves at them, somewhat awkwardly, as they approach, then walks down and meets them just as they are approaching._

_“Freddie!” Ben greets, and his shout grates a little. “It’s so good to see you again!” He meets her in an awkward hug-handshake hybrid that leaves them both visibly uncomfortable. Pedro snorts. “This is Pedro a--”_

_“Peter,” he corrects, face hard as if he has just decided something. “Peter Donaldson.” Balthazar half-starts. He hasn’t actually heard him use that name voluntarily, but he can’t blame him in such a formal setting as meeting the person they’re going to live with for the next few years._

_“Pleasure,” she says, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you,” she says to Balthazar, when he approaches, and the ornate ring on her hand digs into his skin when he shakes it._

_“Yeah, you too.” He smiles, ignoring it. “Stanley Jones.” Stanley has always been a safer name than Balthazar, anyway, at least on first meeting._

_“And you already know me,” Ben finishes, giving both of them a weird look._

_“Right,” Freddie says. “Do you want me to show you around the flat before or after we grab your stuff?”_

_“Um, we might as well look around,” Pedro suggests. “Choose our rooms before we grab our stuff.”_

_“Okay, is that alright with everyone?” Freddie asks. Ben and Balthazar both shrug. “Great, come on in.”_

_As Ben catches up to Freddie, long strides covering the distance easily, Pedro hangs back with Balthazar. “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” he murmurs._

_“Do what?”_

_“Introduce yourself as Stanley,” he says. “I know you don’t like that name.”_

_Balthazar shrugs again. “We’re meeting a flatmate for the first time,” he replies. “Good impression and all that.”_

_“Yeah, but…” Pedro sighs. “You’re Balthazar.”_

_“And you’re Pedro.”_

_Pedro looks at the roof of the house, feigning interest for Freddie. “I don’t know if I want to be,” he says. “I think I’d rather be Peter.”_

_Balthazar knows what it means to want to stay true to himself, to prefer to introduce himself as Balthazar, rather than the more human name Stanley. “Okay,” he says. “I can’t guarantee I won’t slip up, but I’ll try.”_

_Peter looks at him then, relief shining in his eyes. “Thanks,” he says._

_“So,” Ben asks in front of them, as Freddie opens another door to show them the bathroom. “What is it that you do? You mentioned a job over facebook, but never what it was.”_

_“Family business,” she says. “I’m a hunter.”_

_Balthazar stills, limbs locking for a single, awful moment. His heart jumps unsteadily._

_“A hunter?” Ben asks. “Of what, deer?”_

_Freddie grins at him, and there is a certain sort of danger in the flash of teeth that Balthazar hadn’t noticed before. He is suddenly eternally thankful that he introduced himself with his human name. “No,” she says. “Magic.”_

_Peter tenses for a moment beside him. “You believe in magic?” he asks, repulsion clear in every syllable._

_Freddie nods, a defiant gleam in her eyes. “Of course,” she says. “It is real, after all.”_

_Ben shifts uncomfortably. “Can we not talk about this now?” he asks, and it comes out half a whine. “I really want to choose a bedroom. Did you mention one with a fake fireplace?”_

_Balthazar doesn’t say a word. The desire to intercede, to fix it, bubbles angrily in his chest, but he can’t risk it. Not with a hunter, wary and defensive, standing right in front of him, embroiled in the conflict as his friends are._

_Freddie glares a Peter for a long moment. “Fine,” she says, and Balthazar lets himself relax, just a little. She twists her ring around her finger. “The room you’re talking about is this way.”_

_“Great!” Ben grins, bounding after her. “I’ve always wanted a fireplace.”_

_Peter snorts, glaring at the ground. “Of course she’s a magic fanatic,” he mutters. “Of all the ridiculous possibilities, it had to be that.”_

_“Better than a serial killer, though,” Balthazar tries, despite his exhaustion._

_“Maybe,” Peter says, but his tone is significantly lighter._

_Balthazar follows them through the house, taking the room that wasn’t claimed by anyone else, and tries to keep his heart rate under control. Perhaps leaving the elf realm was not a good idea, not after so long spent there. His magic thrums under his skin, no longer hidden under years around humans. He could return now, back to safety, back to parents and kin and kind. He could return to duty and weapons and snatches of music only when there is no one else around, no one to watch or judge. He could return to the smothering gazes of an entire race of beings, tracing his every move._

_When they’re carrying up their luggage, Freddie offers to help him with his instruments. She calls him Stanley and smiles at him without suspicion. He could become friends with her, he realises, startled, if she never found out. But no one has found out in all the years he has lived with them; why should anyone guess now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 16.01.16: An edit for this chapter by [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/) can be found [here](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/137256695425/an-elven-prince-who-absolutely-kills-it-on-the) in all it's ethereal beauty <3


	4. Chapter 4

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Hey, I’ve got some time today after class, if that’s all right? _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Of course!!!!!! _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ the cat is v excited about this _

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Meet you at Boyet’s, then? _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ ok :))) cant wait!!! _

He finds himself actually feeling glad that he finally has the time to visit Paige and Chelsey’s place, though he’s only known them for a couple of weeks. More time spent away from the flat, he thinks, can do him no harm. Perhaps it might even put him at ease. He can’t even imagine what that would feel like.

He spends too much time in this flat, probably. He spends too much time chasing after hopes that will never be fulfilled.

He finishes his classes and takes his time getting to where he needs to be. Paige is waiting for him in front of Boyet’s, two cups of coffee in hand. “You look like a coffee kind of person,” she says as he approaches. “I don’t know your order, though.”

He takes the offered cup, feeling warm from the coffee and the kind gesture, and they start walking. “I suppose I am,” he says. “Not in, like, a normal sense, though. I just really like the way it tastes.”

“That’s right, caffeine wouldn’t really help you, would it?” Paige says, sticking her hand into her coat pocket. “You’ve a different kind of constitution.” It sends a tiny thrill down Balthazar’s spine to be able to talk about magic – his life, really – this openly. Paige knows how to talk about it with grace and subtlety; it’s totally natural, how well she can mask a conversation.

“I can definitely appreciate how good this is, which is all that matters,” Balthazar says, lifting his cup up briefly.

“Boyet’s is the best I’ve ever had,” Paige says with a nod.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “But it appeals to me in other ways, too.”

“Hm…” Paige’s face lights up with realization. “Oh! It’s because you’re vegan, right? I know that’s a big elf thing...”

Balthazar smiles. It is a good feeling, to not explain and yet to have someone understand anyway.

“You know, there’s a reason Boyet’s is popular among people like us,” Paige says. “Because of things like that, you know? The place has a lot of accommodations for us - dryad-approved ingredients, vegan options, all that good stuff. And, of course, with Kit there, it’s pretty well-protected.”

“Hm.” Balthazar nods thoughtfully. “Is Boyet magical, then?” He’d have to be, to know his demographic that well.

“Actually, no.” Paige smiles. “I’ve met him, actually. He’s human. Like, not a witch either?”

Balthazar feels his eyes widen. “Really.”

“Yeah, Kit told me it kind of runs in his family, being magic sympathizers. Apparently, the shop’s been passed down for generations…”

“Oh, wow.” Magic as a tradition in human families, from personal experience, almost always means hunting. He’s never heard of  _ this _ before.

“So, how old are you? If you don’t mind me asking,” Paige is saying.

He blinks, momentarily startled at the sudden subject change. “Uh, I’m eighteen.”

“Oh, so like around my age! Okay, sorry, I just wanted to make sure. Like, I’m not sure I’ll ever know how old Kit really is?” She laughs. “Chels is our age, too, but her tree is quite long-lived.”

“Ah.” His mind races. That would make Chelsey – not immortal, but certainly outlasting any human she would ever be acquainted with. He wonders how Paige feels about that, or if they will stay together long enough to feel the consequences of that kind of relationship.

As soon as he thinks it, he feels ashamed for thinking of his new friends in such terms. And yet he can’t deny that he would think about it no matter how hard he tries to suppress it. It’s something that’s on his mind more than he’d like it to be.

Paige shoots him a curious look, but doesn’t pursue the topic further. “So how long have you been playing music?” she says. “You’re quite good.”

“For as long as I can remember,” he says seriously. It is not a light statement to make, for an elf. “You said you wanted someone to look at your song?”

“Yeah, I’m having trouble with the chord structure, and I figure someone as talented as yourself would help me figure things out,” Paige says.

“Ah, I didn’t bring my ukulele…”

“That’s no problem at all,” Paige says, grinning.

When they reach the flat, Paige rummages around in her bag for the keys. “You could always ask Chelsey to let us in?” Balthazar suggests.

“She’ll be out in the garden at this time, I’d expect,” Paige says with a discrete shake of her head.

“You have a garden?”

“Aha!” Paige pulls her keys out with a sound of triumph. “You should come see it. It’s quite lovely, if I do say so myself.” She laughs quietly. “A dryad and a witch make for a formidable gardening team.”

Their flat is small, just barely big enough for two, but a cursory glance is enough for Balthazar to tell they really know how to make the best of the space. Everything from the art hanging on the walls to the plush armchairs that sit by a set of beautiful, big windows has been chosen with an eye – perhaps two – for taste. And yet whatever decorating choices they’ve made don’t seem deliberate in the slightest; it is the most natural feeling place he’s ever set foot in, charm and grace spilling out of every corner of the room effortlessly.

Something nudges against his leg. He looks down to find a black cat, eyes bright blue, peering up at him, unblinking. Carefully, Balthazar kneels down and holds his hand out, watching in quiet awe as the cat leans into his touch and purrs softly.

“She likes you!” Paige says delightedly. “She is an excellent judge of character. Anyway, I’ll go get the things we need. You can go ahead into the garden, just this way. It’s a beautiful day to work outside, don’t you think?”

“Lovely” is a bit of an understatement, when it comes to this garden. For the briefest of moments, when he first steps into it, he almost forgets he’s in the middle of a city. The astonishing shades of green present in the leaves and grass around him, the flowers that fill the air with their alluring perfume, the row of trees that surround the garden and tower above his head – this place reminds him achingly of home, all the best parts of it.

Chelsey sits cross-legged among the grass, looking down at her hands, which are moving quickly, with intense focus. Without a second thought, he comes over and sits next to her.

“Hello, Balthazar,” she says without looking up. “How are you doing today?”

“Good,” he says with a nod. “What are you – “

She looks up with a brilliant smile. “Done,” she says, and he realizes that there is a circle of flowers resting on her brow right before she places a crown of his own on top of his head. The gesture makes him oddly emotional, in a small way. Flower crowns remind him of home, too, the summer festivals that lasted for days and nights, the mead sweet and sharp on his tongue, his sister making him rings and bracelets and necklaces of flowers and laughing and laughing…

“You have a beautiful home,” Balthazar says, as sincerely as he can make it.

Chelsey smiles again, accepting the compliment with grace.

“I was wondering…” Balthazar hesitates. “I don’t want to be too forward.”

“Go on.” She’s already started working on another flower crown. Balthazar doesn’t bother wondering how she’s acquired the flowers so quickly.

“You’re not immortal,” Balthazar starts.

“Mhm?”

“Paige isn’t, either.”

“Ah.” She looks up, and there is no smile on her face, but her eyes are sharp with knowing.

“I just – “ Balthazar feels very awkward, suddenly. He doesn’t feel like he has any right to be asking what he wants to ask.

“You can’t talk to Paige about this because my position better resembles yours, doesn’t it?” Chelsey says.

“I…” He swallows. “I don’t have a position, really.”

Chelsey tilts her head. “Oh?”

Balthazar deigns not to respond, instead looks down at the blades of grass he’s been pulling out of the ground absent-mindedly.

“Regardless.” Chelsey shrugs. “I’m not immortal, but you are.”

Balthazar closes his eyes. “Yes.”

“Hey.” The gentleness of her voice causes him to look at her. There is no judgment on her face, only kindness. “You can ask me what you’d like.”

“Does it bother you? That she’s human?” Balthazar says quietly.

“Does it bother me that it’s not a possibility it won’t last, but a guarantee?” Chelsey leans back on her hands, partly finished flower crown resting on her lap. She tilts her head and looks up at the sky. “No, I don’t think it does. I think it’s what makes this feel special.”

Balthazar swallows. “Special?”

“Yes.” She hums softly to herself. “Human stories always talk about the happily ever after lasting forever. But I think there’s a certain beauty in knowing that happiness only lasts for as long as it wants to. And that’s okay. That’s special too.”

She closes her eyes, and her smile is so serene it’s impossible not to feel the truth of her words in his very bones.

“Hey, what all are you talking about?”

Balthazar blinks, surprised at the sound of Paige’s voice. He turns to see her coming toward them, ukulele and open notebook in hand.

“The inevitability of death,” Chelsey says cheerfully. “Come here, darling.” She reaches out as Paige approaches, placing a finished flower crown on Paige’s brow, her touch tender and lingering. Balthazar lets his gaze wander away, toward the lyrics he can just make out in Paige’s handwriting.

“ _ It’s a challenge, waking up seeing the sky as grey as your mind _ ,” he reads out. “Hey, that’s not half bad, actually.”

“Are you saying you doubted my songwriting abilities?” Paige says with a smile, one hand on hip.

“I’d never,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest. “What’s it about?”

“You, silly,” Paige says. She sits down next to him, pulling the notebook into her lap and handing the ukulele to him.

Balthazar looks over at her, mildly startled.

Paige takes a deep breath. “Look, I know we’ve only known each other a few days, so we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she says. “It’s just… I don’t know about you, but if I’m, you know, unhappy, music’s the thing I use to make myself feel better. And I figured the only thing that can make music even more effective is if you do it with a friend.”

“I’m fine,” he says. The lie falls flat, even to his own ears. He doesn’t even want to guess how it sounds to an empath.

Paige, on her part, doesn’t answer, just smiles at him gently, for which he is grateful.

He clears his throat. “All right, then, let’s go for it, I guess.”

They don’t finish the song that afternoon, but for some reason that doesn’t make him sad. Usually he gets nervous when he walks away from a song unfinished, the incomplete nature of it digging under his skin like an itch that lasts until he gets it done. There’s no pressure this time, though, no ingrained need to tweak it to perfection, and maybe it’s thanks to Paige but maybe it’s because things are just starting to bother him less. Wouldn’t that be nice to believe?

What they do get done impresses him. Paige channels raw emotion into imagery almost effortlessly, and she’s a fine songwriting partner to work with; charming, relaxed. They hash out a decent chord structure – “Though I think the ukulele is the wrong instrument for this,” he tells her – and Chelsey says the harmonies they work on sometimes sends chills up her spine, though Paige says maybe it would sound even better with a third person. And most of all, when he looks down on the page and sees his feelings scrawled across it in tiny letters, he doesn’t feel strange, like he doesn’t fit in his own skin. He doesn’t feel like those words belong more in his head than in a wild, uncertain world.

When they’ve given up on the song, Balthazar starts fooling around on the ukulele, playing silly numbers he knows by heart. Paige pulls Chelsey up with a laugh, and they dance under the warm sun like it’s never going to set, or like they don’t care if it does.

In the moments of quiet they find, Paige wrapping her arms around Chelsey’s torso as they sway slowly, eyes closed, to the beat of his playing, Chelsey’s earlier words echo in his head. He doesn’t feel the urge to look away from them, as he usually does in others’ moments of intimacy. He thinks he understands what she might have meant, more than he thought he ever could. And he thinks he might be okay with that. Even if he doesn’t know whether he’ll ever believe her.

 

Paige and Chelsey offer to walk Balthazar back to the flat, but he declines. Rather, he hugs them both in farewell and scratches Daisy’s purring head as he leaves. The walk back to the flat is short enough for the sun to have barely moved in the sky before he arrives back, but he can see clouds milling about around it, slowly forming a tangible mass.

Eyes on the clouds, he lets himself in without looking. This turns out to be a mistake, his mind too occupied. Another person bumps into him, arms reaching for his immediately to offer a support he doesn’t actually need.

“Sorry, bro,” Peter says, and Balthazar takes a step back, adjusting the flower crown and shutting the door behind him.

“Nah, it’s cool. Sort of my fault, anyway.”

Peter’s eyes dart up to the crown for a moment, and his mouth curves up. “Are those real flowers?” he asks, incredulity clear in his voice.

“Just a figment of your imagination,” Balthazar jokes, resisting the urge to touch it self-consciously.

Peter snorts. “That’s not what I-- it’s just--” His cheeks tinge. “It’s cute. You’re cute-- small, and, like, precious. In the flower crown, that is.”

Balthazar tilts his head, enjoying Peter’s flustered state despite himself. “Not without it?” he asks.

“Without it, too.” Peter shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “God, just ignore all of what I just said.”

He nods, fighting back a smile, and adjusts the crown again as it slips down his forehead.

“Anyway,” Peter says, “how are you going with that history assignment?”

“Well enough, I guess.” He’s halfway through but it’s not due for another three days, and he can always work on it tonight. “You?”

Peter shrugs. “I’ll get it done. I just wanted to know if you were free sometime?”

Balthazar’s breath freezes in his lungs. “I think so?” he says, voice steady. This has happened before, almost, and he can remember it in clear detail despite its age. The hesitant question, expelled sharply. The warming of his cheeks, the joy of the thought. The inevitable answer, compelled by reasons beyond Peter’s knowledge and either of their power to fix.

“Great,” Peter grins, bright and hopeful. “I was thinking we could go to town, if you’re good with that?”

“We?”

Peter nods, suddenly more cautious. “The flat,” he explains, and Balthazar’s breath thaws and burns.

“We” as in Balthazar-and-Ben-and-Peter-and-Freddie, not “we” as in Balthazar-and-Peter. He can deal with that. Even in town, in the loud, squashed clubs and the heavy air and the substances that will affect all but him.

“Okay, yeah,” he agrees. Peter grins. Balthazar has never been able to say no to him, not when it counts.

“Great,” he says, and the grin turns into a grimace. “Now I just have to convince Ben and Freddie.”

A part of Balthazar, a terrifying, irrational part that he rarely lets rule him, wants to tell Peter to forget them, to just go with him and let what happens happen. But that can never be, he knows, has known deep down for years. “Freddie would agree, I think,” he says instead, because this is necessary for the flat, for the thick tension that’s been curling around them for days, or weeks.

“Yeah,” Peter shrugs. “I guess that’s a bit hard to believe when she threatened to kill me based on her limited perspective on my  _ sex life _ .” Balthazar opens his mouth to answer, to say something that might smooth over relations in the flat, but Peter sighs. “I want to try to fix it,” he says. “It’s just… difficult to get to that point.”

Balthazar nods, forcing a smile.

“That’s what this is about, anyway,” Peter says. “If I’m staying here, I want us to get along, at least enough for us to get past the death threats and unfounded accusations.”

He wants to ask if getting everyone drunk is really the way to do that, but Peter’s methods are his own, and he knows bringing it up will start a fight. “Fair enough, I guess.”

“I’m just going to find Freddie, then,” Peter says, moving past him with one last look at his flower crown.

Balthazar makes his way to his room—he really had better get that assignment finished, especially if he’s going out.

“Oh, hey, Peter,” he hears Freddie say before he closes his door.

It’s easier to throw himself into his assignments than deal with the thoughts that Chelsey’s words and Peter’s ideas have triggered, swirling and developing and branching out. Rather than thinking about what his answer would have had to be if Peter had asked what he thought he would, he writes a paragraph. In place of remembering Paige and Chelsey’s easy acceptance of their inevitable end, he studies music theory.

None of his schoolwork can quite rid him of the fear of what his answer would have been, if Peter had asked, Chelsey’s quiet assurance still echoing in his mind.

After what could have been minutes or hours, he looks up, realising that the sky is beginning to darken. He should probably make dinner.

He leaves the flower crown on his textbook—still as fresh as the moment Chelsey had made it, imbued with old dryad magic. It’s that magic that keeps half the homes in the elven realm in living condition, dryad made in years too far gone to recall.

Peter is in the kitchen when he arrives, drinking a glass of water, and Balthazar nods at him as he takes the necessary materials for dinner out.

“You ditched the flower crown,” he observes, and it sounds something like disappointment.

Balthazar shrugs, taking down a pan. “It was starting to wilt,” he lies. That’s something he learnt very early on, that everything outside the magical realms dies eventually, that the flowers his sister sends him from wherever she happens to be are not meant to last longer than a week. That doesn’t make them any less beautiful, though.

Peter nods, setting his glass in the sink. “I’m off,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you,” he replies as Peter leaves, and tries not to feel concerned. It’s really not his business what Peter does.

He doesn’t have the right to be worried, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is.

  
  


_ In the last couple months of his final year - according to his family, anyway - in the human world, he finds himself spending less and less time in the elven realms. _

_ He doesn’t bother offering explanations to his family. They let him go, because ultimately any orders they give him cannot challenge his own will. But he knows the disapproval and the disappointment they will feel upon his departure, because that’s how they’ve always felt when he leaves like this. They have never understood, and will not understand now. _

_ Though, honestly, he’s not sure if he himself understands. Can he explain to himself what the itch beneath his skin to be with his human friends is rooted in? Can he explain why the tension among them, the entanglements of lies and pain too deep for them to ever truly recover from, draws him nearer instead of pushing him away? _

_ Maybe it’s true that they are doing better. He can tell himself that as much as he likes, but he wonders sometimes whether they really are, no matter what they say or tell themselves. He knows, at the least, that they’ll never be the same. Humans are not immutable; humans change like oceans. _

_ Pedro’s changed the most. It hurts his heart to think about. He tries not to, too much; down that road lies thoughts and feelings and unsaid words and secrets he can barely admit to himself that might eat him alive, if he let them. _

_ There’s no use in worrying too much about it. Pedro’s started smiling more and more around their friends lately; he’s started making jokes again, and laughing at them. It’s something, and Balthazar has no right to worry. _

_ And, anyway, the apologies have been made, and people are talking to each other again. At some point, a few weeks before they graduate, Beatrice and Hero organize a party, and they invite basically everyone. Balthazar allows himself the tentative thought that maybe it was worth sticking around. _

_ The party is subdued, but lighthearted. He brings his ukulele, but at some point hands it over to Hero happily and wanders about, drifting from conversation to conversation. He congratulates Beatrice, immediately opening himself up to a small storm of complaints despite the fact that he hadn’t specified what he’d congratulated her for. Ursula’s put down her camera for once, and when he comments on it she smiles a small smile, her gaze flickering toward Hero in a way he cannot miss. Her Year 9’s huddle around John, asking him muttered questions he catches bits and pieces of, like “Tibbles” and “evil cat sidekick”; the sight, and John’s growing alarm, puts a smile on his face. _

_ He spots Pedro sitting on a couch next to Ben, too, and waits until Ben leaves, presumably off to find Beatrice. Pedro doesn’t look happy, exactly, so much as he looks thoughtful. Balthazar tries not to wonder about what they might have spoken about. _

_ When Balthazar approaches, Pedro’s gaze flickers up to him. “I’m tired of this place,” he says, without preamble. _

_ “That’s rude. You’ve only been here for an hour,” Balthazar answers, quirking an eyebrow. _

_ “I meant Auckland.” Peter looks away. “I’ve spent almost my life here, haven’t I? In institutions and such. Don’t know if it was worth it, or if it was just a colossal waste of time.” _

_ It’s supposed to be a joke, the kind of joke you make at this kind of occasion, when you want to be flippant about an uncertain future. It doesn’t sound like a joke, coming off of Pedro’s tongue. It sounds like he actually believes it was a waste of time, though Balthazar can’t tell if he’s talking about school, or about himself. _

_ “Sorry. Didn’t mean to come across as such a buzzkill.” He pulls his face into a grimace. “It’s a party, right?” _

_ Balthazar smiles down at his drink. “Something like that.” _

_ “Listen, I’m glad you showed up, though, I wanted to talk to you about something.” He looks up at Balthazar, then, and something in his gaze makes his heart skip a beat. His eyes are wide, sincere, other things Balthazar can’t begin to guess at. “Do you want to go outside, maybe?” _

_ Balthazar swallows hard. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.” He follows after Pedro as he gets up and makes his way toward the patio door. It feels too long since the last time he felt comfortable enough to do so, to follow him. It feels just right. _

_ The sky is still light, and it feels good to be outside, he decides. Looking toward the green hills and the trees reminds him a little of home. _

_ As soon as his thoughts turn to his kingdom, though, he regrets it. Thinking about the elven lands, the insurmountable divide between them and the human world, means he has to think about staying there. Leaving the humans behind forever. He doesn’t know how much longer he can put it off, just knows the time is not so far away now. _

_ He supposes it never has been. Elves feel the passage of time differently from humans. But maybe he’s spent so much time with the humans that he’s fooled himself into thinking he’s not that different from them. He’s thought about it before, of course, how much simpler it would be if he had actually been born with the name Stanley Jones, and no crown to his name. If he could eat and live like a human, with a deadline attached to the end of his life, and no fear that he’d have to leave anyone he cares about for the rest of forever. He’s wondered about it, whether living that way really would be harder, or if perhaps it could be easier, in some ways... _

_ Pedro lets out a shuddering sigh, which tears Balthazar away from his thoughts. He stands with his back to Balthazar, hands in pockets as he faces the trees. There’s something august in the set of his shoulders, effortlessly graceful. Balthazar thinks hazily that out of the two of them, Pedro is easily the more noble. Sometimes, he wonders how he’s the one who ended up with the title of ‘Prince’. _

_ Balthazar moves to stand next to him, of course, another inevitability. It’s silent for a long while. A good kind of silence, Balthazar figures. A month ago, it was the silence of carefully held distance. Two weeks ago, it was the silence of tension, like a weight in his lungs. Now, it is the silence of uncertainty, a brittle hope. Of what, Balthazar can’t bring himself to guess. _

_ “Balthazar,” Pedro says, eyes straight ahead. _

_ “Pedro.” _

_ “Have you thought too much about the future?” _

_ Too much, Balthazar thinks, is an apt description. _

_ “I reckon I’ve given it a bit of thought, yeah,” he says. “Why’s that?” _

_ Pedro turns his gaze, somewhere in the middle between unhappy and not, toward Balthazar. Balthazar can’t find it in himself to look away; his pulse pounds in his ears. _

_ “I think I’m going down to Wellington.” _

_ The words sound like a confession, heavy with secret importance. When Pedro says it, he looks away, abashed. Balthazar can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. _

_ “You always talked about staying here, near Bea and the rest of them…” _

_ Pedro runs a hand through his hair agitatedly. “Yeah, I know, but Ben’s been talking about uni in Wellington, just going on and on about it - you should hear the way he talks about it, he makes it sound way better than it probably ever will be - but anyway he says he’s found a place, he just needs flatmates…” _

_ He has heard Ben talk about going down to Wellington for school. They talked about it a short while ago, actually, and Ben asked if he wanted to come along too. Balthazar had said something vague, along the lines of “yeah, I’ll think about it,” not knowing if he actually would, and certainly feeling like he shouldn’t. _

_ “It’ll be good to get out of here, I think,” Pedro is saying. “Fresh start. And all that.” _

_ Balthazar wants, with a sudden fierceness that almost startles him, to embrace this boy, this boy so frustrated with the world and with himself that the only way he can deal with it is to leave it all behind. He wants to ease all of his pain away, even though he knows it’s impossible for someone of his skills, and even though he knows it would be just about the worst thing for Pedro right now. That’s the thought that keeps his arms still, of course. He cannot afford to be selfish in a moment like this. _

_ “I think it’s a great idea,” Balthazar says, smiling weakly. “I’m happy for you.” _

_ And maybe, if Pedro leaves Auckland, maybe that’ll make it that much easier, when Balthazar has to leave too. _

_ Pedro looks at him, eyes widening. _

_ “I think you should come with me,” he bursts out, the smallest amount of desperation seeping into his words. _

_ Everything grinds to a halt inside Balthazar, his breath, his heartbeat. Everything in his thoughts is still. _

_ “I…” he manages to stammer out. _

_ “I’ve been meaning to ask, because Ben needs two flatmates, and I figured you’d be easy to live with…” Pedro closes the distance between them with a few steps, reaching for Balthazar’s hand. “We could do it, you know. We could - well, we could just  _ **_leave_ ** _. It’d be easy. What’s keeping us here?” _

_ What’s keeping Balthazar here? The question rings uncomfortably about his head. A sense of duty that ceased to mean anything to him years ago? A kingdom who expects him to be something he isn’t, and to give up all that he is? A family who doesn’t even try to understand? _

_ I shouldn’t, he could say. He could walk away from all of this right now, all of the doubt and all of the unspoken words and half-realized hopes. He could walk away from a world that would never really accept him if they knew the truth about him. He could leave this world for one he hadn’t ever asked for. _

_ He’s tired, he realizes. He’s tired of chasing his choices round in endless, unsolvable circles in his head. He is so damn  _ **_tired_ ** _ of dealing with everything, in the human world and outside of it. He never wanted to deal with it in the first place. _

_ Pedro half-smiles at him now, uncertain but breathlessly, devastatingly hopeful. He’s right, Balthazar thinks. Leaving would make this all so much easier. _

_ “All right,” he says, the words heavy in his mouth. Even as Pedro’s face bursts into a relieved grin, squeezing his fingers tightly, even as Balthazar knows in his heart he should have at least asked for the time to think about it, he also knows all the time in the world wouldn’t change his answer.  _

_ He can’t remember the last time he was able to say no to Pedro Donaldson. _

_ “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Pedro says. It seems like he’s been bolstered by Balthazar’s answer. His eyes have lit up, now, his words sped up by some sort of hushed excitement. Balthazar’s heart beats on, steady and hard in his chest. _

_ “What is it?” he says, hating himself a bit for how faint his voice sounds. _

_ “I…” _

_ The patio door slides open loudly, then. _

_ “Hey, Pedro, can I talk to you?” Beatrice pauses in the threshold. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, am I…?” _

_ Pedro is still holding his hand. He looks toward Balthazar, now, bewildered, at a loss. _

_ Carefully, Balthazar disentangles their fingers and smiles encouragingly. “We’ll talk later.” Pedro needs to talk to Beatrice, of course, and Balthazar can’t stand the thought of being in the way of something that important. _

_ Pedro clears his throat. “Yeah, later.” He smiles hesitantly at him, still hopeful, and goes inside, leaving Balthazar alone outside. _

_ Balthazar closes his eyes briefly, exhales. He can almost feel the ghost of Pedro’s touch against his skin, still lingering in the spaces between his fingers. _

_ The realization of what he’s done slowly sinks in, settling in his gut like a heavy stone. He’s agreed to leave Auckland - the kingdom - for a city he’s never stepped foot in. And Pedro? He hasn’t known where they stand with each other for weeks or months or maybe even years now. If he wrote down all the words they’ve never said to each other, he could write whole books. Balthazar does not have a single clue what the future will yield. _

_ There’s a strange sort of peace inside him at these revelations. Somehow, he can’t find it in himself to regret it. This is something he probably won’t be telling his family; that’s fine by him, too. _

_ His phone buzzes in his pocket, then. _

**_From: Rosa_ ** **_  
_ ** Where are you? I can’t make excuses for you forever, you know.

_ He stares at the screen, long and hard. He glances back inside, all of his friends smiling, laughing, healing. Pedro and Beatrice in a corner, serious faces and mouths moving silently. It’s as it should be, exactly as it should be. _

_ He can’t stay forever, either. No matter how much he wants to. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/2 - [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/) made these [lovely](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/136455525935/peterdonalduck-douchenuts-ps-you-can-read) [edits](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/136512386415/peterdonalduck-douchenuts-its-me-again-i) based on this chapter, which are so pretty they should be seen by everyone. Thank you!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: verbal abuse, gendered slurs, and content resembling panic attacks and bigotry. If there's anything else, please do not hesitate to let us know.

The day of Peter’s proposed trip to town is a long one for Balthazar. He wakes up in a good mood, the ridiculous cacophony of birds greeting the sun as they do every morning, and finds himself looking forward to the night ahead with something not unlike apprehension but far from fear. He stumbles around the flat for a little bit, seeing if Peter or anyone else is awake.

This mood lasts all of two hours, right up until he checks his phone. It’s a text from Rosa. Rosa, who he hasn’t spoken to in a week, since a conversation that left his head throbbing and his throat burning.

 **From: Rosa  
** _Hey, hope you’re doing alright. Just thought I’d let you know I’m coming to Wellington for a visit in a couple of days. We need to talk, properly._

He sighs and rubs his eyes. When was the last time he had seen her in person? The last summer festival? The one before that?

 **To: Rosa  
** _Did our parents send you?_

He probably shouldn’t have sent that. It’s too harsh, too angry, too inciting. Too telling. Rosa’s never been one to back down from a fight, even with him, even with their parents.

He writes ‘ _sorry_ ’ and then erases it, hating how difficult it’s become to talk to her in recent months.

 **To: Rosa  
** _I missed you, too._

When he leaves his room, Ben and Peter are in the kitchen arguing over toast and alcohol, and, even before he reaches them, it progresses into shouting. Peter stalks out of the kitchen, running his hand through his hair, and Balthazar can hear Ben shouting after him.

“Hey, are you alright?” he asks Peter.

Peter grimaces. “A little hungover,” he answers, as if that was what Balthazar was asking.

“So Ben--”

“Really, bro,” Peter insists, sighing. “I’m fine. Just looking forward to tonight.”

Balthazar nods. “Right, yeah.” Conversations with Peter used to help improve his mood, bring a smile to his face, but recently their words have had a habit of falling flat.

“It should be fun, though,” Peter says. “tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

He tilts his head. “You don’t think you’ll enjoy it?”

Balthazar shrugs. “Not really my scene, you know?”

“I mean, I get that,” Peter nods. “But it’s like--god, how do I explain it?” He looks at the ceiling, lips pressed together. “It’s like, when you’re there, drinking or dancing or whatever you want to do in the clubs, you’re anonymous, just one more body on the dance floor, a few more dollars in the till. There are no expectations, no one telling you that you have to be this person or that person, because no one gives a fuck. You’re just you, but with lowered inhibitions and people to smile at without consequences.” He looks at Balthazar again, a light in his eyes.

Balthazar knows what it feels like to want to disappear, to be anonymous. “I’d hope people would value me for more than my body,” he says, just to see Peter smile.

He does. “Well, your money in the till, too,” says.

Balthazar pretends to think, a smile playing on the corners of his mouth. “I guess that’s fair.” Here, again, is their easy camaraderie, so often hidden under layers of shouldn’ts and can’ts.

Peter looks a little relieved, and despite himself, Balthazar’s heart skips. He really isn’t a schoolboy with a crush, following some unsuspecting human around until he’s noticed, but sometimes it feels like it. Peter is unsuspecting and human, after all, and Balthazar’s heart often takes the liberty of pretending it is a butterfly.

“Great,” he says, then, “I think we’re out of milk, do you want to come get some with me before Freddie flips?”

“Why not?”

Peter smiles at him again, and he looks tired but less stressed than before. “Going out,” he calls to Ben. “Be back in time for tonight!”

“Eat something while you’re out!” Ben calls back, and Peter snorts.

“Okay, let’s go,” he says. “Before Ben attempts to tube-feed me toast or something.”

“Probably wise,” Balthazar agrees. He understands Ben’s worry—humans need to eat far more often than other species—but nagging him about it is more counterproductive than anything, has been since he went by Pedro and folded under the weight of others’ expectations for him.

Peter’s arm brushes his on the walk, and, Balthazar thinks, if things were different—if he was human or Peter was magical or miracles existed—he could have reached out and twisted their fingers together.

Had Paige and Chelsey ever felt like this, before they made peace with their fate? With all the odds stacked against them from the very beginning, had they pined or simply stood with more courage than he could ever muster against the inevitable?

“You alright?” Peter asks him, echoing his earlier words, and Balthazar nods.

“Just thinking,” he replies, and wishes everything was as easy as it is for Paige and Chelsey.

Peter knocks their shoulders together, and Balthazar pulls his sleeves over his palms. “I’m pretty sure we still have your disgusting milk substitute,” he says, corner of his mouth upturned, “so we just have to get normal milk.”

“That’s rude.” He’s smiling, too, just a little, used to the constant ribbing from his human friends at his eating habits. It’s weird for them, not eating meat or animal products, but there are countless elven treaties against it, and the very idea of actually doing so makes his stomach turn. Elven bodies have always sustained themselves better on vegetation, anyway.

“I have tasted that stuff, okay?” Peter says, grimacing. “It’s actually horrifying.”

“Oat milk isn’t that bad.”

“Not nearly as good as real milk.”

Balthazar shrugs. “Well, each to their own, I guess.”

“I guess,” Peter sighs, smiling. His shoulder knocks Balthazar’s again.

Balthazar thinks of Paige and Chelsey, living in acceptance of the inevitable and loving each other in every moment. He looks at Peter, happy and ignorant and all too human. _That’s special, too_ , Chelsey had said.

He doesn’t reach out and take Peter’s hand, but the coming night is one of potential, filled with maybe’s that could drown out everything else, if he lets it.

They pick up the milk, Balthazar trying not to wrinkle his nose at the meats they pass-- really, it’s been years, now, and he should be used to it. By the time he and Peter get back to the flat, the sun is sinking in the sky.

“Get ready,” Peter prompts, grinning, as soon as they let themselves in the door. He disappears into his room, as Ben and Freddie likely have, and Balthazar puts the milk in the fridge before he does the same.

After deliberating for what is probably longer than necessary over what to wear, he heads out into the lounge room, where Freddie is still struggling with her shoes while Ben sits on the couch and loudly encourages everyone to hurry up. Peter grins at him.

“Come on,” he says. “I’m going to take a flat selfie for Tumblr.”

Ben jumps over the back of the couch to get to where they’re congregating, ignoring Freddie’s yelp of protest. Then, finally, once the photo is taken and both of Freddie’s shoes are on, they head out the door. The air outside is cool, but not cold. The sky is dark, but welcoming; if Balthazar squints, he can almost pretend he sees the stars.

“What are you thinking about?”

Balthazar lets his gaze wander toward Peter, who meets his eyes steadily as they walk.

“Why do you want to know?” Balthazar teases lightly.

Peter shrugs, looking down at the ground. “You just looked thoughtful, that’s all.”

Balthazar does not think about Peter looking at him enough to notice when he’s being thoughtful. “I guess…” He cranes his head back, eyes on the night sky. “I guess I was just thinking what it would be like to be a star.”

Peter snorts. “Ever the lyricist.”

“Don’t you think it’d be peaceful?” Balthazar says, glancing toward Peter.

“I think it’d be lonely.” Peter frowns. “Lonely and far away.”

Balthazar doesn’t have time to answer – Freddie and Ben come up from behind and sweep them away in a wave of laughter and jokes to their first club – but the words don’t quite seem to leave his head. The thing is, it’s hard to begrudge a star for being lonely and far away when half the time he already feels that way himself.

Freddie buys him the first drink of the night, and though in some ways it’s wasted money he downs it with a genuine smile. The music they’re playing is decent, and he can feel the bass vibrating somewhere deep inside him. He has no right to feel lonely, not tonight.

Ben and Freddie are the ones who do the most dancing, one unabashedly horrid at it, the other moving with an amateur but graceful sort of charm. Balthazar enjoys watching them from the bar, letting the lights and the noise wash over him in a cacophonous blur. He’s not usually one for crowds or loudness; sometimes, the swell of shouted words and music can feel overwhelming, a weight that presses down on him, suffocating. Tonight, though, is different, and though he’s not inclined to join the throng he doesn’t feel out of place on the edge of them, like a badly cut jigsaw piece. He feels right where he belongs, or at least as much as he can feel that way anywhere.

As soon as he thinks it, he can’t help but wonder why that is. Is it because he’s finally caught up with all of his school work, even a bit ahead in some courses? Maybe it’s because the flat, as much as they’ve been distant with each other lately, is actually making an effort, for once. On the other hand, maybe it’s Paige and Chelsey and Kit, and all the other people – not like him, but who understand him, and where he comes from – he’s met in the past week; maybe it’s them who make Wellington feel more welcome.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s Peter, Peter who’s by his side right this moment, Peter who smiles now brighter than he’s had in weeks or maybe months in Balthazar’s presence, Peter who’s drunk enough to look at Balthazar without glancing away at the first sign of danger…

Fiercely, Balthazar pulls his thoughts away. That, he thinks, has always been a treacherous part of his head to venture into.

“Hey, Balthazar,” Peter shouts, his voice cutting through the blurry noise.

“Yeah?”

“You want another drink?”

Balthazar looks down at his empty glass. He’s had two or three, at this point. Alcohol doesn’t actually do anything for him, but whenever he has too much, he can feel it sitting heavily in his stomach, in a place it doesn’t belong. “Better not,” he says.

“Oh, come on,” Peter complains loudly. “You’re no fun.”

“Yeah, actually, I think I’m gonna go get some fresh air,” Balthazar says. “Do you want to…?”

Peter looks at him, long and hard. Then he puts his drink down on the counter and gestures for Balthazar to continue in front of him. Balthazar complies, suddenly and inexplicably grateful.

He immediately feels better as soon as they get outside. Clubs, all in all, aren’t bad; they’d left when the DJ had just put on a Fife and the Drums song, actually, and he’s almost sorry he’s going to miss the end of it. Clubs aren’t bad, but sometimes they’re just too much. He likes the dancing, or at least the atmosphere of it, and he likes the company of his friends, but he also likes this, the crispness of midnight air sharp against his skin, and the silent streets. The lights are bright out here too, but they’re friendly, and just as colorful.

Peter collapses on a nearby bench, sprawling his arms across the top of it. With a brief moment’s hesitation, and the thought that neither of them actually care that much, Balthazar sits down next to him, letting his back rest against Peter’s bare forearm.

“Are you enjoying yourself so far?” Peter says, leaning his head back.

“Yeah,” Balthazar says honestly. “The music’s been good. And the company.”

“Good,” Peter says, flashing him a grin. “I’m glad. I was afraid.”

“Afraid?” Balthazar lifts an eyebrow. “Of what?”

Peter shrugs. “I dunno. You’ve just been sort of quiet lately, I guess.”

“Have I?” Balthazar supposes he has. “I like the city at night.”

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Peter smiles at the lights above their heads. “It’s like…”

“It’s like what?”

Peter shakes his head. “Never mind. I was gonna say something dumb. Like, like magic, or something. Magic isn’t pretty. Magic isn’t real.”

Balthazar’s heard it before, has heard those same words so many times before from so many different people, people he loved and people he couldn’t quite bring himself to like, and though he should by all means be used to it by now, every time they come from Peter he can never quite stop some part of his insides from growing cold.

“I suppose not,” he manages to get out.

Peter sighs deeply. “Wish Freddie didn’t believe in it. It’s stupid.”

Balthazar resists the urge to squeeze his eyes shut. “I thought you guys were good now.”

“I mean, we are, or getting there, but it doesn’t mean I have to agree with her beliefs, does it?” Peter says, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve a right to my own opinions, too, not like they’re affecting anyone but me.”

Of course Peter would think that. Balthazar doesn’t say anything, doesn’t feel like he has a right to, doesn’t feel like he can.

Peter shakes his head. “She’s a damned fool. And everyone else like her. Even got Ben back into that poison.”

Balthazar swallows hard. “Beatrice, and Hero…”

“At least they aren’t hurting anyone, are they?” Peter says, fixing Balthazar with a hard stare.

“No,” Balthazar says, defeated, because he can never argue against Peter when he says things like this, in a voice like that. “I guess not.”

Peter opens his mouth as if to say more, but someone cries, “Balthazar!” from behind him, and their conversation is broken when he turns around to see who it is. The relief is almost palpable when he realizes it’s Paige and Chelsey.

“Hey, what are you guys doing here?” he says as he gets up to greet them.

“We could say the same about you,” Chelsey says as she pulls him in for a hug. When they pull away, she smiles at him brightly. He can see a daisy tucked behind her ear; it does not wilt. “I’m taking Paige out to boogey. She’s never been, can you believe?”

Paige rolls her eyes playfully, squeezing at Chelsey’s hand. “I think I can survive if I never go my whole life, Chels.”

Chelsey gasps. “Blasphemy!”

Paige catches sight of Peter, then, still seated on the bench. “Hey, who’s this?”

“Oh, uh, this is my friend and flatmate, Peter,” Balthazar says, gesturing vaguely. “Peter, these are some friends, Paige and Chelsey.”

Peter stands up, then, sticking out his hand. A smile stretches out on his face, charming. Balthazar’s heart skips a beat, and he feels a twinge of annoyance at himself. This time, he has no real excuse.

“Nice to meet you,” Peter says, shaking their hands. “Where d’you guys know each other from?”

“There was an open mic night at a coffee shop the other day,” Paige says easily. “Place called Boyet’s, have you heard of it? You should really swing by sometime, he does some great things with a guitar.”

“Yeah, I know.” Peter turns to Balthazar, a look of betrayal in his eyes. “You didn’t tell me you had a gig, Balth.”

Balthazar shrugs, heart beating a bit faster. “I didn’t tell anyone in the flat. Figured everyone was just busy.”

“I’d make time for you,” Peter says, almost casually. Balthazar finds himself wishing he’d stop saying things he doesn’t really mean, even as his pulse picks up even faster.

“Um, we should really get going,” Chelsey says, shooting an uncertain smile at Balthazar. “It was really lovely to meet you, Peter, and so nice to run into you, Balthy! Let’s catch up some time, yeah?” And then they’re gone, their laughter trailing behind them.

When they’ve left, Peter turns back toward Balthazar. “I really mean it, you know,” Peter says quietly, and Balthazar knows, he _knows_ that there’s no way Peter can read minds, but still he can’t help but marvel just how easily Peter can get into his head, as if he’s hardly even trying. It’s almost unfair. “If you’d asked…”

There are other reasons Balthazar didn’t ask, so he just shakes his head. “Want to go back inside?” he says.

Peter purses his lips, but says nothing more, other than, “yeah, okay.”

Balthazar’s phone buzzes in his pocket as they slowly walk back to the club. He thumbs through the message quickly.

 **From: Paige Moth  
** _hey, u sure u doing ok???????_

Peter stumbles over a curb, then, and Balthazar is caught off guard because Peter isn’t the kind of person to lose his balance. He doesn’t fall over, but he does stare stupidly at his feet and mutter, “Fucknuggets.” The situation, everything about it, is so ludicrous, Balthazar bursts out laughing.

Peter looks at him. “Assface,” he says, but he’s smiling.

“You going to be okay there, Mr. Football Captain?” Balthazar says. “Need some assistance?”

“Wow, fuck off, really,” Peter says, waving his arm in Balthazar’s direction dismissively. “I refuse to accept help from you.”

“I’m wounded,” Balthazar says, laughing. “Really, I am.”

“Good,” Peter says emphatically, lips still turned upward. “Let’s go, then?”

“Sure, sure,” Balthazar says, smiling back. “Just give me a sec?”

Peter nods, and soon Balthazar is alone in the street. He pulls out his phone and types, without hesitation,

_Yeah. Everything’s just fine._

And, feeling the truth of those words in his bones, he goes back into the club. The rest of the night will be long, he thinks, but it’ll be worth it.

This perception lasts for all of an hour; when at last they arrive back in the flat, Ben, Freddie, and Peter stumbling over themselves and each other, Balthazar feels sluggish in a way that could never be attributed to alcohol.

Freddie disappears into her room almost immediately, and Ben collapses on the couch with a melodramatic groan.

“Why did I have that last shot?” he asks; whether it’s addressed anyone specific or just the general atmosphere, Balthazar isn’t sure.

“I’m pretty sure your rationale was ‘yolo’, actually,” he answers anyway.

Ben hums. “Sounds right. I should vlog this.”

Balthazar snorts, moving into the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water. Peter’s already there, leaning casually against the sink in a way that suggests he’s a little past the point of standing up straight.

“Hey,” Peter grins brightly, looking up from his phone. “What are you doing?”

“Uh, just grabbing some water.” He motions toward the sink, taking down a glass from the cupboard. “You?”

“Just answering some questions on Tumblr,” he says. “Stuff about, like, uni and the flat and…” He looks back down at his phone, and his expression darkens. “And my old beliefs.”

Balthazar moves past him to fill up his glass, remaining silent. He doesn’t have energy to contest him this time, to bring the tension to a place he can manage, all expelled in short bursts throughout the night.

“God,” Peter sighs. “They asked me for my thoughts on the fae leaving, like I care.”

 _If you don’t care, why does it matter?_ Balthazar doesn’t ask him, choosing instead to take a sip of his water and shrug. He knows Peter knows all about the disappearance of the fae, or as much as any human can, has heard countless theories countless times in attempts to convince him of a truth he can never forget.

“It’s just so ridiculous, you know?” Peter says, scowling. “The fact that people believe in magic. Like, yeah, sure, I did, for a few years, but _just grow up_ , you know? People who hold onto these… these _ideas_ are like children.”

He’s drunk, Balthazar knows, otherwise he wouldn’t be so angry without a catalyst, wouldn’t be so inconsiderate of others like this. He’s been at least somewhat respectful of others’ opinions since Balthazar has known him.

“It’s their opinion,” he says. He hopes his voice doesn’t tremble.

Peter scoffs. “That doesn’t mean they have the right to be stupid—“

“Balth?” Ben calls from the living room, oblivious. “Can you get me a glass of water? I don’t think I can move.”

“Sure,” Balthazar calls back, heart thrumming dangerously in his ribcage. “Just give me a sec.”

He takes another glass out and fills it slowly, painfully aware of Peter’s eyes on him. Taking it to Ben, he lets himself breathe for a moment, already dreading the short trek back to the kitchen. He can’t leave now, though, not in the middle of a conversation, not when things are starting to come back together.

When Balthazar makes it back to the kitchen, Peter is on his phone again.

“My followers are asking about you,” he says without looking up.

“Ah,” Balthazar answers, in lieu of anything substantial.

“…And back to the fairytales,” he groans. “Ugh, I’m going to ignore this one.”

Balthazar doesn’t ask what it’s about; he’s heard every variation of this rant possible since last year. They haven’t become any less painful to sit through.

Peter goes on anyway. “I mean, it’s pointless for them to put their faith in these myths anyway. Like, whatever, they have these children’s stories, but the idea that the legends are worthy of their ven-veneration or praise or whatever…”

 _Veneration is a big word for a drunk person_ , Balthazar wants to say, wants to tease and lighten the mood; the words stick in his throat.

“Or like, that they’re dangerous? If magic existed, it wouldn’t be running around the countryside or threatening people or whatever the fuck it is that inspires the legends of elven princesses or people like Freddie and her family to kill innocent humans in their campaign against something that doesn’t even exist.”

 _Rosa_ , Balthazar thinks, and something a little like anger interrupts the pain and fear that has been coursing through him in turn throughout the entire conversation.

“I mean,” Peter scoffs again, and Balthazar doesn’t think he could stop this rant even if he wanted to, issues that he’s been repressing all year brought to the surface through stress and alcohol and confrontations no one should ever have to face. “What even is with all the elven princess stuff? Just some immortal girl running around, messing up the lives of mere mortals, expecting the world to fall at her feet. It’s not even the only story, like—“

“Seriously?” Balthazar snaps, and wishes he could retract the words the moment they are formed. “I’m sorry—I just—you’ve done nothing but rant about this all night. People _are_ allowed to have their own opinions.”

Peter blinks. “Of course they are,” he says. “It’s just that some of them are _stupid_.”

“That’s not fair,” Balthazar replies, and his heart is pounding in his throat and his head and his chest and even his toes, he thinks. “People are entitled to their own opinions. Just because you—“

“Don’t even go there,” Peter says, voice dangerously quiet. “You _know_ why I realised all this was wrong.”

“That’s the point.” He’s being reckless, he knows, and he can feel the tension curling around the both of them, pushing and pulling and tearing. Everything within him screams at him to _fix it_ , to make it go away.

Could he, so tired and drained, wrung out like an old dishcloth as he is?

“The point? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Balthazar shakes his head, sighs. “It doesn’t—I don’t mean anything.”

“No, really,” Peter challenges. “You said it; it has to mean something.”

“It _really_ doesn’t,” he replies. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to—“

Peter catches his arm as he tries to leave the room. “Why are you walking away from this?” he asks, and it sounds like _why do you walk away from everything?_

“Please just let go of me, Pete.”

“What’s the point, Balthazar? Why do you keep on defending them?”

 _Because I am them_ , he thinks, but that is not quite accurate.

“I just don’t think it’s fair,” he says. “To say this sort of stuff when you believed the same stuff just a year ago.”

Peter blinks, lost for words for a moment. He recovers quickly. “Why are you choosing their side?”

“I’m not on a side.”

“You never are.”

“I…”

“You’re never on a side, not when it counts. You—you say you’re a dog person, but you really have no preference. You wouldn’t cheer at any of our games in school. The only thing I’ve ever seen you make an actual stance on is veganism, but you never try to convince anyone else—do you even have a reason?”

“Pete, please…”

“No, Balthazar listen to me. At least I have my own opinions, okay? At least I know what I believe—at least I know to choose my friends’ side, when it counts.”

“I do choose my friends—“ he starts to say, desperate to fix it, to stop Peter’s indignant fury from focusing on him. He doesn’t think Peter’s ever been mad at him before, not really.

“Really?” Peter asks. “It doesn’t feel like it now.”

 _I’ve always chosen you_ , he wants to say, but it’s not accurate, either.

“Maybe you should choose me, then,” he shoots back, and watches Peter’s face change.

“That’s ridiculous,” Peter says. “Me choose you? I’ve always chosen you, Balthazar, you’re the one who’s drawing away!” His voice rises with every word, and Balthazar knows he shouldn’t have said that, knows it wasn’t fair of him in the slightest. “It’s just like everything else, with you. But every time we get close, you run. When I was trying to repair things last year, you left without even telling me.”

“I apologised for that.”

“Well apologies don’t help me feel like I don’t even matter to you half the time!”

“That’s not what it is at all!”

“No?” Peter asks, still yelling, and Balthazar just wants him to quiet down, hates it when Peter yells, when Peter reaches the point where he decides his words are not enough on their own. “Then what is it?”

“It’s... “ Balthazar searches for words for a moment, finds none. “Look, at least I don’t hurt people with my opinions,” he says instead, voice just as loud as Peter’s, despite his wildly beating heart, the sick feeling in his stomach. “Not intentionally. I don’t start wars over things that don’t matter.”

“My actions affect no one but me,” Peter retorts.

“No, they don’t!” He chooses his words to damage, and hates himself for it. “You hurt Freddie when you call her delusional. You hurt Ben when you call him an idiot and brush him off. You hurt me, over and over, and you never even realise it. You hurt your followers, probably, the little, impressionable ones who followed you last year because you validated their belief in magic, the ones that were there for you from the beginning. That’s what you do, Pete; you hurt--”

Freddie chooses that moment to burst into the kitchen, Ben swaying behind her, and Balthazar flinches despite himself, the unbridled fury on the hunter’s face sending an irrational wave of panic through him. Peter flinches too, but his glare doesn’t move from Balthazar.

“What the everliving fuck,” Freddie says, livid. “This is not a soap opera. We are uni students drunk and tired and _ready to sleep for a week_.” Her voice rises with each word, face reddening and hands waving wildly. “Keep your lovers’ spat for when you’re both sober and not sharing a house with a pissed off hunter in possession of _multiple_ weapons.”

“Hey, hey,” Ben cuts in, then. “Threats of violence are not cool, remember Freddie?”

Freddie deflates visibly, sighs, rubs her forehead. “Just go the fuck to bed,” she snaps. “See how sorry you feel when I don’t make waffles because I couldn’t sleep through your argument.”

Ben gasps. “ _Not the hangover waffles_.” Even Peter looks a little shocked. Freddie hasn’t mastered vegan waffles yet, though, so Balthazar can’t care either way.

He can still feel the panic curling around his chest, braided and bolstered by tension and words too loud and too harsh, and he knows he’s too tired to even try to push it away, to quiet the thudding and growling in his ears. Balthazar knows his limits, knows what happens if he passes them. But he can’t stay, not with all their words buzzing and blurring around him, the tension growing and spreading.

He does what he always does—he runs.

“I’m just going to bed,” he says, cutting through whatever it was that they were saying, and walks out before any of them can protest.

Balthazar shuts himself in his room and screws his eyes shut. He wishes he could get drunk, just once. People drink for escape, don’t they—humans burdened with loads too great for others to comprehend?  That sounds more appealing by the minute, even though he _knows_ it’s not healthy, even though he was warned so many times.

For the first time, he regrets, just a little, coming with Peter to Wellington.

 

 

_Just about the only thing worse than knowing something is wrong is not knowing what that something is._

_Pedro hasn’t talked to Balthazar – had anything resembling a proper conversation, really – in about two weeks. Which is fine. That’s totally fine. They both have other friends, other responsibilities to think about. What isn’t fine is the persistent feeling that the avoidance is on purpose._

_They did speak at length maybe once - or was it twice? - sometime before class started last week. It’s the kind of conversation Balthazar could spend a long time turning over in his head, which is just that much more reason not to think about it. Still, sometimes he catches himself remembering how unpleasant his gut felt, how unpleasant it still feels, at the words they said to each other._

_Balthazar had been working on an assignment he had forgotten to do the night before, or something along those lines, when Pedro had turned his head and said, no preamble, as many of their conversations started, “So I suppose your opinion on magic’s still the same, yeah?”_

_Balthazar tried not to start at the question. “What do you mean?”_

_“You still don’t care?”_

_It’s not like that, Balthazar wanted to say. But that’s exactly what it has to be. He didn’t answer._

_Pedro let out a sharp sigh. “Maybe you should.”_

_Something cold crawled under his skin at those words. They’d talked about magic quite a lot before - it had always been a favorite conversation topic of Pedro’s, even if Balthazar never really brought too much to the table when they did - but this didn’t sound like all the times before. This sounded dark; this sounded almost angry._

_“And why’s that?” he said carefully._

_“Maybe it’s dangerous.” Pedro looked right into Balthazar’s eyes, in that moment. “Maybe it hurts people.”_

_Pedro didn’t know. There was no way he could know. And yet - Balthazar remembers exactly what it felt like to hear those words from Pedro’s mouth, relives it some nights before he goes to bed and his thoughts move too fast for him to sleep - it was like a shard of ice had dug its way into his heart. He felt cold inside, and aching._

_“I wouldn’t know about that,” Balthazar said, turning his attention back to his work, because there was nothing else he could think of to say, and because his heart was beating so hard it threatened to burst out of his chest._

_And Pedro pursed his lips, and said nothing more._

_It’s not like he hasn’t spoken to any of their other friends, either. Far from it. At lunch, Balthazar can hear Pedro and Claudio’s angry whispers as he approaches, and the way they die away to tense silence when he takes his seat. Even Ben seems privy to whatever troubles them. The fact that Ben’s face always seems pulled into a frown whenever he’s around the other two doesn’t do anything to assuage Balthazar’s misgivings._

_Balthazar has considered approaching Pedro about it, of course, but always writes off any plan of action he might formulate in the two seconds he allows himself to think about it. What would he even say? “Stop making me feel like I don’t exist”? He has no interest in sounding like a clingy ex, or in melodramatics._

_In the end, after days of deliberation and letting his doubts eat him away, he approaches Ben. **Ben** is the one he approaches. Desperate times call for desperate measures._

_“Ben, can I ask you something?” Balthazar asks hesitantly during English class._

_“Hm?” He can see Ben scrawling messy notes across the page about Marlowe. They’re not even reading Marlowe today._

_“Did I…” Balthazar shakes his head, feeling inexplicably foolish. “Did I do something to get on Pedro’s nerves?”_

_Ben’s pencil stills. “Wait, what? I’m sorry, say that again?”_

_“Ben.”_

_Ben blinks at him, genuinely confused. “You? On Pedro’s nerves? I’m sorry, but I am intimately familiar with what it’s like to be on his nerves, and trust me when I say you don’t even come close.”_

_The relief that comes from hearing this statement is only marginal. “Then why’s he been acting so strange?” Balthazar says, and he can’t help himself, he pushes the issue more than he was going to, or should. “He hasn’t even really texted me for weeks now.”_

_“Oh.” Ben’s mouth forms a little surprised circle._

_“Come on, Ben, you have to know something,” Balthazar says, trying not to sound desperate._

_Ben shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Balth, but unfortunately it isn’t my place to say. Just – it’s not you, okay? Honestly, for Pedro, I don’t think it’ll ever be you. You’re, like, permanently stamped in his good graces. Practically impossible to get out of there now, even if you wanted to.”_

_These platitudes Ben is feeding him are not reassuring. “So what is it, then, if it’s not me?” Balthazar is almost afraid to know._

_“It’s…” Ben looks painfully conflicted. “Frankly, **I** shouldn’t even be involved.”_

_“Ben. Please.”_

_Ben draws his eyebrows together. “I’m sorry, Balthazar, I just. I can’t. Just hope this will all be over soon.”_

_Whatever is happening between Pedro and him, he thinks, will probably never be over, not for him. But he nods, and he tries to feel satisfied with leaving it at that. It’s a futile effort, of course, but at least he can content himself with the knowledge that he tried._

_There’s a week until Hero’s sixteenth birthday party. It’s better to focus on that, on the joy and excitement of his friends as they all get ready for the big day, than on anything else. He buries himself in the work on the song he’s writing for Hero’s present. He has the lyrics penned down, almost memorized somewhere in the back of his mind, but much to his frustration he can’t find chords that sound right. They’re too happy for these words, these words that echo with melancholy when he reads them silently off the well-worn page he scribbled them on. And yet he can’t make it a terribly sad song, either; it is her birthday, after all._

_By the time the party rolls around, he’s still not done with it, and he has to accept that he’ll be giving his present late. He knows, of course, that Hero won’t mind in the slightest, but he can’t fight back the vague disappointment. Even when it comes to what he’s supposed to be good at, he can’t quite live up to expectations, whether from others or himself._

_He texts Pedro in some fit of pretending he’s brave sometime in that week, just to see what he says, he tells himself, and for no other reason at all._

**_To: Pedro Donaldson  
_** You okay?

 ** _From: Pedro Donaldson  
_** Why wouldn’t I be.

 ** _To: Pedro Donaldson  
_** Don’t laugh, okay?

 ** _To: Pedro Donaldson  
_** I just kind of miss talking to you

 ** _From: Pedro Donaldson  
_** It’s not you Balth. I just need space from everyone.

 ** _From: Pedro Donaldson  
_** Don’t worry too much about me okay?

_Those efforts prove futile, too._

_The day of the party comes, as every day must. He puts on his nicest human clothes, frowning slightly at the fact that his sleeves still don’t fit him well but not minding all that much, and brushes at his hair fretfully. The itch of some impending doom, some wrong he can’t quite see or understand, feels embedded under his skin, unwilling to be shaken off any time soon._

_It’s going to be a good night. Hero Duke, of all the people he knows and loves, deserves that._

_He goes to the party alone, arriving about fifteen minutes late. Most everyone is already there, milling about and making small talk. He finds Hero and Beatrice in the kitchen, smiling his compliments and quietly promising Hero that he’ll have something for her soon, terribly sorry it’s not ready tonight; she puts her hand on his back and smiles, no strings attached._

_The playlist they put together for the party is pretty decent and is set at a volume that isn’t deafening. He lets the rhythm of the music put him at ease. At every turn, he finds friends and acquaintances to catch up with, to laugh with over the silly mundanity of life. A difference from elven parties he welcomes. Everything is so much simpler with humans, and so much more honest. He never has to worry about even smiling out of place, not with these humans, anyway._

_In the corner of the living room, he finds Ursula with her camera, idly aiming it at the passerby. “Cameras are better than people, now,” he says as he approaches, taking a seat next to her._

_“You sound like Ben.” Ursula carefully places the camera in her lap and flashes a hesitant smile at him. “All right there, Balth?”_

_“Yeah, I’d say so.” He smiles back. “It’s a beautiful night, Hero’s finally sixteen…”_

_“And one year closer to the hopeless grind of adulthood.” Ursula pushes her glasses up her nose. “Tragically beautiful.”_

_Balthazar laughs. “Something like that, yeah.”_

_“She’s beautiful tonight, isn’t she?” Ursula says, her tone casual. Her gaze is fixed on the kitchen, and he wishes for a moment he could see what she does._

_“As always,” he says. “A beautiful girl for a beautiful night.”_

_“Pure poetry.” Ursula’s lips tug upward._

_“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “this does mean the year’s almost over, isn’t it? The school year, anyway. That’s pretty strange to think about.”_

_“Yeah.” Ursula glances downward. “Now, there’s the real tragedy.”_

_“Really?”_

_“Yeah, I mean…” She brushes her hair behind her ear and turns to look at him, eyes serious. “Most of our friends are going to be gone when the year ends, won’t they?”_

_Balthazar’s heart jumps in his chest unsteadily. He hates being reminded of deadlines he can’t avoid, even inadvertently. “Gone” for him means something entirely different than what it means for everyone else._

_“You’ll still have Hero,” he tries. He’s almost surprised at how steady his voice is._

_“Yeah.” Ursula smiles again, softer. “I will, won’t I?”_

_Hero and Beatrice call everyone around for cake, and their conversation is as easily dropped as it was picked up. Balthazar stands near the wall, and as Hero fusses over the cake, Beatrice gently teasing her and Leo standing over them beaming with pride, he can’t help but smile. Years lived outside his realms, and yet he never stops finding happiness in small moments like this, small moments he should, according to his people, be used to already, be bored of. He could never get bored of how wondrously, perfectly human his friends are._

_That’s when he sees Pedro and Claudio hovering nearby, Claudio’s face too dark and angry to belong at his girlfriend’s birthday party, Pedro’s eyes deathly serious, and that’s when he knows, probably before anyone else in the room but far too late to do anything about it, that the moment is about to be completely, devastatingly shattered._

_It’s as if Claudio moves in slow motion, in the seconds that follows. Balthazar watches in mute horror as he walks up to Hero, limbs moving through molasses, and opens his mouth._

_“So shall we sing Happy Birthday, then, or would that be too embarrassing for you?” Beatrice is saying._

_“No,” he says, and with that word everything starts moving again, way too fast._

_Hero looks at him, confusion clear in her eyes. “Claudio?”_

_“No, we’re not going to sing happy birthday,” he says. “We shouldn’t, anyway.”_

_“Claudio - “ Beatrice says, and though she’s just as confused her tone is warning._

_“No, you guys don’t get it.” Claudio laughs shortly, then points a harsh finger at Hero. “You don’t get to be happy. Not after what you did. Not after what you’ve been doing.”_

_Time distorts again; Hero’s face pulls into shock, slowly, seconds dragging at her lips and eyebrows._

_“Claudio, what are you talking about?”_

_“I’ve been reading up on magic, you know. Creatures.” His lips snarl around the word, spitting it out like something foul he’s tasted. “I know who you are. I know **what** you are. Sleeping with other guys behind my back, and coming back to me with perfect make-up and perfect little knee length dresses, and for what?” Every single word that leaves his mouth bleeds._

_“Claudio! What – “ Hero’s face is white, so fucking pale, it’s a color Balthazar will never forget._

_“You’re a succubus, aren’t you? That’s why you’re unfaithful? Fucking men left and right isn’t enough, you have to prey on our souls, too?” he spits out, and this isn’t his fight, he’s not part of this in the absolute slightest, none of them are except for Claudio and Hero not even Pedro, but dread seizes Balthazar’s entire body, and he cannot breathe._

_Hero does not speak. Tears stream down Hero’s cheeks, silently; everything inside Balthazar aches._

_“But more than that, you’re just a little slut,” Claudio says, and now he’s screaming, he’s yelling so loudly his words echo through the entire house and it feels like the floor is shaking, it feels like everything should be shaking. Balthazar catches a glimpse of Pedro’s face behind Claudio. He’s not surprised. His face is hard, and he nods with every word that Claudio says._

_Everything is falling, and Balthazar is falling with it. It is happening too fast; it is happening far too slowly._

_Claudio spins away, then, and Balthazar watches numbly as he leaves. Beatrice has her arm around Hero, now, who’s trembling so hard Balthazar wonders hazily how she hasn’t fallen to the ground yet when it feels like she should have, when it feels like they all should have, and Beatrice is yelling something at Pedro, everything’s too blurry for Balthazar to figure out what. Pedro yells back, words all warbled and glass, and then he leaves too, and it’s all so much more than Balthazar could have possibly fathomed, so much more and so much **worse**. There’s no word for it, no word that’s big or horrible enough for this. There’s only letters jumbled up like soup in his head._

_Balthazar stumbles toward the patio door, even as he can feel everyone leaving for the living room, the pain and confusion so thick and so real it feels like he’s swimming in it. His hand fumbles for the latch, and when he gets outside he takes in the night air in huge, dizzying gulps. The cold is not enough to calm his thoughts; it’s all he can do not to fall to his knees._

_It’s not his fight, he repeats over and over to himself. It’s nothing to do with him, it’s nothing it’s nothing it’s nothing and he should feel nothing because he has no right not to. It’s everything for Hero, and nothing for him; he has no fucking right to be feeling like this, like the world is burning apart, like he barely even knows himself anymore. He hates himself, deeply and wretchedly, for taking Hero’s rights away from her. This isn’t about him. Why does he always have to make it about him? It is **never fucking about him.**_

_But how can he not feel that way, when his entire existence, his life and his world, has just been used against the people he loves so violently, so horribly? And how can he not feel that way when he knows how deeply and irrevocably wrong they are? He knows that succubi aren’t even real. He’s the one who can fix it, right? And yet how can he, when to fix this would mean risking his own life and livelihood, his own everything?_

_How can he be so damned selfish?_

_His head and his thoughts are running around in circles, infinite circles he can’t break out of. He wants to, more than he wants to breathe. He wants to escape his thoughts, the one thing he never can. He would tear them out of his skull with his own fingernails if he could. He can’t._

_He sucks in a breath, another. Seconds pass, minutes. The noise fades away. There is only tired left, skin deep bone deep tired. He wants to sleep for a thousand years; he knows he never will._

_Balthazar walks back into the house, feeling awful for not being there like the rest of them. Most everyone’s left. Beatrice and Ben are still there, of course, still next to Hero. Ursula is cleaning up by herself, quietly and determinedly._

_Balthazar clears his raw throat. There’s a thrumming ache at the base of his head, a heaviness that pounds dully at his temples. “I’m sorry, I just…”_

_Ursula shakes her head, a small movement. “Everyone understands, Balthazar. Promise.” She looks up at him with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Help clean up?”_

_“Yeah,” he says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth, but at least cleaning up is something he can do to keep his hands busy, something to make him feel less useless. He hates that he has to find ways now to feel less useless. He doesn’t have the right to feel any less useless than he is._

_He helps Ursula clean up dishes and throw away garbage. He wipes down tables and puts furniture back to where it’s supposed to be. He doesn’t think, because he doesn’t have to and because he doesn’t want to and because he doesn’t feel like he should. He doesn’t think._

_When they’ve cleaned up as much as they can, Ursula sits down heavily in a chair and lets her head sink into her hands. “Fuck,” she says. It’s the first time he’s ever heard her swear._

_“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”_

_Ursula takes in a trembling breath, and when she straightens up her face is pulled together. “It’s okay.” She glances over toward the living room. “Everything will be okay.”_

_“I should have known this was coming,” Balthazar says, hating himself for every word, for knowing how true and how awful it is._

_Ursula shakes her head vigorously. “No one could have, least of all you, Balthazar.” She gets up and walks toward the living room. “You should go home. You’ve done enough, tonight.”_

_Balthazar doesn’t answer. He walks mechanically to the door, opens it, and walks into the night. He thinks, with a twist of cruel irony in his gut, that now he can write a sad song for Hero, and then he hates himself for the thought. He thinks about going home, what he should do and what he can’t, not now, not when everything has broken so fast, compared to how much time it took to build it._

_Too much. Everything is far, far too much. Too much for him to fix, too much for anyone to fix - it’s a thought that he can’t make leave his head, no matter how desperately he wishes it weren’t true._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10.1.2016: There are a [couple](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/137367974030/niuniujiaojiao-i-know-who-you-are-i-know) of [edits](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/136986154850/me-choose-you-ive-always-chosen-you-balthazar) for this chapter because [niuniunjiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com) is immensely sweet and talented <3
> 
> (warning: the first edit is of hero's party and its aftermath)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've just posted our writing playlist for this series, as celebration for reaching 1000 hits (thank you!!!), if you want to have a listen [here](http://8tracks.com/douchenuts/one-lifetime-with-you).

Freddie knocks on Balthazar’s door a little after nine, soft but impatient.

“Stanley,” she calls through the door. “We’re having a flat meeting; there are some things we need to discuss together.”

Balthazar stands, stretching. He’d slept two, maybe three, hours the night before, too caught up in the mess of fury and tension and confusion that had lingered throughout the house after the argument.

“I’m coming,” he calls back, pulling on a jumper over his pajamas.

By the time he makes it into the loungeroom,everyone’s already in there, sitting around on the couches. Peter seems to be just settling in, already dressed and looking like he’d been out. Balthazar takes a free spot, rubbing his eyes, and waits for someone to speak.

Ben moans, first to break the silence. “Can we just do this so I can get back to sleep?” he asks. “I hate hangovers.”

Peter shrugs. “Well, if we just knew what we were all here for…”

“We need rules,” Freddie says, as if that explains everything. “We’re tearing each other apart, and we can’t seem to exist in harmony on our own, so. Rules.”

“Like what?” Peter scoffs, scowling. “A curfew? A regulated amount of time spent together each day? We’re adults, Freddie.”

It would be nice spend time with the others. Maybe it would help to ease the tension that seems to have laid permanent claim to the flat, too.

“That sounds like a good idea, yeah,” Balthazar says, the first time he’s spoken since leaving his room. He can feel Peter’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t dare meet them.

Freddie nods. “Okay, okay, I’ll put that down, but we have some other, rather serious issues. I spoke to my parents this morning.” Here her voice strains, and she pulls her sleeves over her hands. “They’ve tightened the budget. Basically, we have to cut down on spendings or we lose  heating.”

“What?” Ben asks, indignant. “But it’s _winter_!”

Freddie shrugs, lips pressed together. “It’s what they said,” she replies, words clipped. “I might be able to get them to be more lenient, but… look, we just have to deal with it, for now. Buy the cheapest versions of products you can find. Learn to conserve cash.”

Balthazar nods. “Yeah, I’d rather cheaper food than loss of heating,” he agrees. “Vegetarian food tends to be less expensive, anyway.”

“What?” Peter says, half mocking. “Are you suggesting we all go vegetarian with you?”

Ben frowns thoughtfully. “We could,” he hums. “Maybe even vegan. Freds?”

She shrugs. “Why not? And we could be vegan on, like, Fridays or something.”

Balthazar finds a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He doesn’t want to make them change their eating choices for him-- never has, in all the time he’s known them-- but it will be easier, living in a flat without meat products around. He’s built up a resistance, sure, far more resilient against dead animals than many others of his kind, but it’s never something easy to deal with, even if he doesn’t eat with them.

Peter sighs. “Sure, whatever,” he agrees. “Anything to keep heating.”

“Okay,” Freddie says. “So we have no guests after a certain time, a curfew--”

“Did we decide what time that was?”

Freddie shakes her head. “Like, ten, maybe? Til seven?”

“No,” Ben says. “Maybe six? That’s somewhat acceptable.”

“What about work, though?” Peter cuts in. “I have night shifts half the time.”

“And I have astronomy club,” Balthazar adds. “That tends to take place at night, you know.”

“Maybe if we put schedules  on the calendar?” Ben suggests. “So then we know that it’s for a good reason, right? Extracurriculars and work are excepted.”

“So, curfew from ten til six, exception work and extracurriculars, vegetarian flat with vegan Fridays, and no going over the new budget. Anything else?” Freddie asks.

Freddie shrugs. “No magic?” she suggests, and it could be a joke if it wasn’t so serious. Balthazar wonders what that would feel like, having his very existence be against the rules they’ve written to bring them all closer. Something deep inside him aches tiredly.

“In that case,” Balthazar replies. “Maybe no anti-magic, either? Just for fairness’ sake?”

Peter scoffs, opens his mouth to say something.

“Oh, um,” Ben cuts in. “How about a compromise. No _talk_ of magic, for or against it, at least within the flat. No accusing each other of possessing it. That way we can’t get into any arguments over personal beliefs. Learn to coexist despite differing opinions, yeah? I like arguing just as much as the next person, but there’s only so much we can put up with, if we’re going to live in peace.”

It’s not like Balthazar ever lets himself broach those topics around them, anyway, too afraid of letting something slip. “Okay,” he agrees.

“So, not in the earshot of flatmates,” Freddie clarifies, tapping the end of the pen on the paper. “I guess… it wouldn’t hurt, after everything.”

Peter frowns. “Okay, but only if she gets rid of her weaponry,” he says. “It doesn’t matter whether or not she can talk about magic, it’s the items that matter more.”

“Um, no,” Freddie balks. “No, I don’t think so. What if something attacks us?”

Peter snorts. “Maybe I’ll protect you, being an _incubus_ and all. Grow up, Fred.”

“I’ve had some of these weapons since I was old enough to hold them,” she growls. “I’m not--”

“Um,” Balthazar cuts in. “Maybe we should just not have magical items in the flat. At all.”

Freddie scowls. “Like that would be an issue for a non-believer.”

“Come on, Freds,” Ben begs. “Compromise, remember? Peace and harmony?”

“Peace and harmony aren’t really a priority if a werewolf or half-crazed elf comes barging in here with a weapon and murderous intent,” she protests.

“What business would any dangerous magical have here, though?” Ben points out. “We’re just a few uni students living together in a little flat. I really doubt anything like that would happen, Freds.”

Freddie’s scowl doesn’t move, but she nods slowly. “Fine.”

“‘Kay, so no magic, talk of magic, accusations of magic, or magical items within the flat,” Ben nods. “We could do that. I think I only have a couple lying around, but I’d have to really clean up to get to them.”

“Speaking of,” Peter cuts in. “The flat’s a mess.”

“We _have_ a choreboard,” Freddie points out. “Even if no one does them.”

“Maybe the rules will help motivate us, though.” Balthazar suggests.

Freddie shrugs, writing it down. “Okay, but we’d better _actually_ do them if we’re putting it down. What were the designations, anyway?”

Ben looks up at the roof. “Ah, I think I was vacuuming, Balthazar taking out the bins, you cleaning the kitchen, and Peter cleaning the bathroom.”

Peter scowls. “Oh, yeah,” he recalls. “Could I possibly swap with someone? Like, I have no problem with the bathroom-- we have gloves, whatever-- but the spiders…”

“Yeah, sure,” Balthazar agrees, suddenly relieved. He hates the bins, the faint stench of rotting meat and vegetation that always clings to them. “I don’t mind the spiders.”

Peter looks at him like he’s some sort of hero, despite the previous night’s argument. “Thanks, bro,” he says. Balthazar’s heart clenches, and Peter seems to remember himself and his fury, looking away.

“Is that everything?” Freddie asks. “Do we need consequences?”

“Like a set consequence for everything?” Peter asks. “I don’t know if that would work.”

“Case by case might, though,” Ben says. “You know, diplomacy and all that. We decide as a flat if someone breaks a rule.”

“Sure, that works.” Freddie scans the paper. “Speak up now if there’s anything else you have an issue with.”

No one does, and Freddie writes the rules neatly on a new piece of paper.

“Sign it?” Ben suggests, staring at the paper. “We can stick it to the wall so we all remember them.”

As he signs it, Balthazar looks over the rules in Freddie’s neat handwriting.

 

_FLAT RULES_

 

  * __No magic or anti-magic within flat__


  1. _no talk of magic_
  2. _no magical items_
  3. _no accusations of magic_


  * _Curfew 10pm-6am_


  1. _extracurriculars and work excepted_
  2. _no guests in the flat after curfew_


  * _Chores_


  1. _Ben - vacuum_
  2. _Freddie - kitchen_
  3. _Balthazar - bathroom_
  4. _Peter - bins_


  * _Stay within budget_


  * _Vegetarianism_


  1. _vegan Fridays_



 

_Punishments decided by vote of flat members._

 

It feels odd, he decides, and a little painful, for his existence to be against the rules. It’s not as if it’s been that way all his time in the human world, though; these rules are just stated a little more explicitly than the undercurrent of hostility facing the idea of magic these days. It has to be worse for those like Kit and Rosa, who have lived long enough in the human world to have been revered and respected, before opinions began to change. At least it’s all he’s known, nothing better to compare his experiences to.

When the paper is signed and stuck to the wall nearest the door, at perfect reading height, the flat scatters, the little goodwill left unscathed used to keep them from tearing each other’s throats out.

Balthazar realises, as he goes into his room, that the most he had spoken to Peter the entire morning had been a short exchange concerning _chores_ . Spiders. Not a good morning, no _how are you?_ , nothing. For some reason, that hurts more than the rule that bans his very existence. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to feel about that fact, but, really, he’s too exhausted to bother. It would be easier, he thinks, to feel everything, like Paige, or just not at all. Anything would be better than the near-constant exhaustion that has clung to him for what feels like years but has only been a couple of weeks.

No, he thinks, ignoring his quiet guilt at the thought. It would be easier to be _normal_. Human. To be nothing more than an eighteen year old boy hopelessly in love with his best friend.

He wishes it were easier.

His laptop makes a noise, then, a cheerful chiming to let him know someone is calling him from skype. He blinks at the screen, uncomprehending for a moment, and glances at his watch. “Shit,” he says out loud, and he rushes to his computer, clicking on the green pick up button as quickly as he can.

“Balthazar!”

Hero and Ursula are on his screen now, sitting side by side, smiling widely at the camera and waving. He falls into his seat and waves back.

“You know, for a second there I thought you weren’t going to pick up,” Ursula says, tilting her head.

“Did you forget we had a skype date?” Hero teases.

“Me? Forget? What?” He presses a hand to his chest. “I would _never_.”

“Of course not,” Ursula laughs.

“How’re you doing? How’s school?” Balthazar says. “You look well.”

It’s true, and an understatement, even. Hero is lovely as ever, and her smile is so real his heart aches. Ursula looks happy, too, and though she doesn’t smile as openly he can see it in her eyes. He wonders if, were they to tip their camera just a few inches lower, he might see their hands intertwined.

“It’s good. It’s hard.” Ursula glances toward Hero, and Balthazar does not miss the way the corner of her mouth lifts up just the tiniest bit higher. “We’re managing, though.”

“We really wish we could come down and visit the flat,” Hero says, “like Beatrice and Meg have been talking about, but we just have so much work up here.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Balthazar says with a sensible nod. “Year Thirteen is hard work. Anyway, maybe now’s not the best time for a visit to the flat.”

“Really?” Ursula leans forward. “Why’s that?”

Balthazar purses his lips. Maybe he’s said too much already.

“It’s…” He thinks, casting about his head for the right words. “Well. Could be better. We had a flat meeting this morning, and we’ve established some sort of no visitors curfew?”

“Really?” Hero’s eyes widen. “You guys won’t let yourselves have guests at night?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s a bit silly,” Ursula comments.

Balthazar sighs. “I know. There’s a bunch of other things we’ve made into rules, too. Things have been so weird lately, though, so I understand why the others want to set it right.”

“Weird.” Ursula’s raised eyebrow speaks volumes more than her words ever could.

Would it be right to tell them about what’s been happening at the flat recently? Truthfully, he doesn’t know if he could even talk about it out loud without stuttering his words painfully, heart beating much too fast for the occasion.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I’ve met a couple of people around, though. It’s nice to get out of the flat every now and then.”

He does not miss it when they share a glance – for about as long as he’s known them, they’ve had a propensity for having whole conversations between them without saying a word – but Ursula nods, almost imperceptibly, and says, “Really? What are they like?” And he is more relieved than he should be that they’ve accepted his poor attempt to change the subject. He gladly talks to them about Paige and Chelsey and Kit, Boyet’s and the lovely apartment with the lovelier garden, carefully leaving out all the details about their magical inclinations. He knows Hero still believes – he sometimes can’t help but wonder how, after everything she’s been through, because if it weren’t for the fact that his very existence is irrevocable proof he doesn’t think he himself would be able to – but they don’t know about him, and it’s safer that way, for everyone involved.

He tells them about the gigs he’s played this semester, and about astronomy club, and he smiles when he can see the stars in Hero’s eyes, for a brief moment, as she thinks about the night sky.

“It sounds like you’re having a really lovely time down in Wellington,” Hero says, almost wistfully.

“Yeah, something like that.” He shrugs. “Give it another year, though, soon it’ll be your time.”

“I don’t know if that idea is incredibly exciting or incredibly frightening,” Ursula says, frowning.

He laughs. “Both. It’s always both. But anyway, enough about me, you should catch me up on the going-ons of Auckland.”

He’s happy, happier than he’s been all day, to sit back and listen to Hero and Ursula talk about their lives. Ursula tells him about the projects she’s been working on – her experiment with videography last year paid off, apparently, and she actually has customers paying her to do work now, a fact that she discloses with just the smallest of smiles – and about some of the new equipment she can now afford. Hero says her piano lessons are going well, their teacher misses Balthazar and sends his well wishes, and though she always seems so busy these days she actually quite likes it that way. Things just feel right when she has a lot going on, you know? And anyway, she notes with an embarrassed laugh, Beatrice and Meg both have their own jobs and their own lives, so it’s nice to be able to focus on herself for a change.

Seeing Hero and Ursula on his computer screen reminds him of how much he misses them, and how much he misses Auckland. He’s never been so far from home, and he’s certainly never felt it as profoundly as in those moments, Ursula talking about how the coffee shop he used to play a couple gigs in is redoing their menu, Hero telling him about all the things that are the same at Messina and all the things that are different. So much can change in just a year.

People can change a lot in that time, too. A little over half a year after – well, _everything_ , it felt like at the time – Hero and Ursula are perfectly, incandescently happy. That’s the way it should be, he thinks fiercely, with last year’s events so distant they feel like some vague impression of a faraway nightmare. And yet, it hasn’t even been a year.

He glances down at the clock, then. Have they really been talking for more than an hour? Talking to Ursula and Hero always seems to make the time go by way too quickly. “I should probably get going, soon.”

“Of course!” Hero beams. “We’d hate to keep you more than necessary. And we have work to do too, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“Until next time,” Ursula says. “And Balthazar?”

“Mhm?”

“Take care of yourself, all right?” Ursula’s eyes are serious, like she knows more than he’s told.

He swallows. “Yeah. Of course.”

They hang up soon after that, exchanging their last farewells, and when they’re done he goes over to his bed and falls onto it. He can hear the front door open with a resounding crash, and doesn’t think too much of it. Someone with the groceries, probably, who didn’t have the hands to open the door gently. He has an essay he should probably get started on soon, and that history assignment that’s been begging him to complete for at least a few days. And there’s work to be done on his music; there’s always work to be done…

His bedroom door swings open, and he sits up, almost involuntarily, and stares.

“Rosa,” he says.

From behind her tall, imperious figure, one hand on her hips and the other on the doorknob, he can see Ben and Freddie gawking at her in dazed confusion, mouths open. Her hair is pinned up differently from how she usually has it, or at least from how Balthazar remembers, but though she’s only wearing a T-shirt and jeans, the look in her eyes is as distantly regal as ever.

“Balthazar,” she says, clipping her words, the tiniest of frowns creasing her perfect eyebrows, “we need to talk. Now.”

 

_He’s ten years old, and finally old enough to go to his first summer festival._

_Balthazar has heard of them, of course. Rosa loves telling him stories, about summer festivals and about all the places she’s ever been, and she’s so good at it that by the end he’s usually begging her to take him, though he knows she’ll just answer with a small smile and a cryptic “When you’re old enough.” He’s old enough, now, and the excitement is enough to send his head spinning before he goes to bed. Sometimes, he’ll be too awake to stay in bed, and he’ll get up and walk to the window, and look at the stars and dream of what he’ll find when he gets to go._

_On the day of the festival, he puts on his very best clothes, laid out the previous night carefully and all by himself, and dances through the rest of the day in some sort of happy daze. It’s tonight, it’s tonight, he chants in his head, and he can barely think of anything else the whole day._

_Rosa promised to take him. When all his lessons are done and he’s finally free to do as he wishes, he stumbles up the stairs to her room. Bursting in would be rude, of course, so he ought to knock. He hopes she’s ready. He hopes he doesn’t have to wait longer than he has to._

_When he gets to her room, he slows to a stop. He can hear singing._

_Balthazar frowns, momentarily confused. He’s heard music before, of course. He plays it himself. But he’s never heard Rosa, perfect model of elven behavior, sing._

_Her voice is pretty, he thinks. If it were only possible, he might dream of letting the whole world hear her voice._

_Then he knocks on the door, and the singing stops._

_“Balthazar,” Rosa says as she opens the door, and she doesn’t quite beam down at him, but there’s a certain brightness in her eyes anyway, and it makes him smile at her. “Are you ready?”_

_“Always,” he says. He knows better than to bring up the singing._

_“Right then.” And he follows her out of the castle, across the fields, to the lights._

_They’re everywhere. In the trees, threaded in people’s hair, glowing in the night sky just under the spread of the stars. If he squints, he can see that they’re fireflies. Rosa catches one and hands it to him; he lets it rest in his palms and watches as it pulses in time to the beat of his heart._

_There’s a lot of people, more than he’s ever seen together in his life, and that’s saying something, he’s been to more banquets and celebrations than he can count. He and Rosa sit down somewhere near the edge of the clearing, thicket of white and purple flowers blooming around them, and make up stories about all the people that go by._

_“They spend all of their time making sculptures out of glass…”_

_“Hasn’t fallen in love in a thousand years, if they’ve even lived that long…”_

_“They seem like the kind of person who collects butterflies…”_

_“I like that hair,” he says, pointing out someone with violet locks braided around their head._

_“I went on a trip with them to Paris in the human world, I think maybe two hundred years ago?” Rosa says, her eyes flickering up, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “It was not fun, let me tell you…”_

_“Tell me,” Balthazar says. He never tires of Rosa’s tales of her travels._

_She reaches over and plucks flowers from their stems, examining them in her hands. “Shall I make you something? A bit of jewelry, for the night?”_

_He nods enthusiastically, and watches as she begins her work._

_“All right, well, when our parents first made me an ambassador – goodness, I think I was eighteen, so I must have been fairly close to your age, can you imagine? – most of the time, at the beginning at least, it was just to other elven kingdoms, but that meant having to travel across the human world, and the thought of crossing an ocean you’ve never seen before in your life can be kind of frightening, you know? Though of course, it’s fine, now, I cross those waters at least twice a month, if not more…”_

_He lets her words wash over him, fill him with contentment. She could fill his head to the brim of her stories, and he would still want to hear more._

_It’s because she’s spent so much time in the human world, probably. Not that he’s terribly curious about it himself, but the elven realms are all he’s ever known his whole life. The mere thought of crossing those glass walls one day sends a thrill down his spine, as he thinks it must to everyone else confined in these lands. They feel so far away from everything his world and his life, it feels like the want to leave should be almost compulsory._

_And the way Rosa describes them, humans sound wondrously enchanting. What would it be like to listen to music whenever you pleased, to dance and to dream and to allow yourself to be imperfect? He thinks about the answer to that question a lot whenever he thinks about humans, wonders if he’d ever be able to find it out one day._

_Rosa’s describing a garbage dump, now, and even that sounds exciting and new._

_“I want to visit a garbage dump one day,” he says, almost wistfully._

_The comment gets a laugh out of Rosa, then another, then she’s laughing hysterically. He’s surprised, but also pleased._

_“Balthazar,” she says fondly, wiping at her eyes, “I promise they’re not the best thing about the human world.”_

_“Which must make all the other things that much better!”_

_She laughs again, more quietly, and settles into a thoughtful kind of silence. He’s more than happy to give her the time to think; he knows when to give her space._

_“You know, in a few years, they’ll send you into the human world,” Rosa says, her fingers deftly twisting the flower stems together. “Are you okay with that?”_

_He threads his hands through the tall, green grass and tries to think. When Rosa’s voice sounds like that, like she’s talking about something serious but trying to be as gentle about it as possible, he knows she wants him to think hard about whatever question it is she’s asked. It’s hard to really know how he feels about living among humans, though. All he knows about them is that he’s never met one in his life._

_She finishes her work, then, and slips it over his head, the flowers circling his neck like a pendant. With delight, he holds the blossoms up to his nose and lets them fill his nose with sweetness. He looks up, and is surprised to see the smile that flashes across Rosa’s face, brief but bright. It’s so rare for him to see her smile like that, but when she does, it’s always the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in the world._

_“Do humans smile a lot?” he asks without really thinking too much about it. He just really wants to know._

_She looks at him sharply, but after a moment her gaze softens. If he didn’t know any better, he’d even say there’s something sad in her eyes._

_“I’d say so,” she says._

_He leans back on his hands and stares at the night sky, thinking of a world filled with people who smile a lot. He can’t even fathom it. But he figures if any of them have smiles half as beautiful as Rosa’s, it’d be a really beautiful world to live in._

_“More so than that lord over there, anyway,” she says, pointing, and it surprises a laugh out of him when he sees how stony-faced the elf she’s directing his attention to. Rosa doesn’t tease often._

_When he looks back at her, her eyes are gentle, almost kind. “The music will start soon,” she says, reaching her hand out. “Come on, Balthazar. Let’s go find a good spot to watch. Not every day we get to see something like that, yeah?”_

_He takes her hand happily, the other still resting gently on the necklace she made for him. Soon enough, he forgets all about going to the human world to a place filled with smiles, and all he can think about is how safe and warm Rosa’s presence makes him feel, under the resplendence of the night sky._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is [ a lovely edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/137439732140/he-leans-back-on-his-hands-and-stares-at-the-night) for this chapter by the amazing [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	7. Chapter 7

Balthazar clears his throat, trying to push away his momentary confusion. “Perhaps – “

“No, here’s probably not the best place, you’re right.” Rosa glances at him, unsmiling. “I’m sorry for barging in on you like this, but it really is urgent.”

There is uncomfortable silence for a moment, Rosa still standing in the doorway with one hand on the knob, Balthazar struggling to find the proper answer. His sister hasn’t changed in the slightest; her back is as straight as it’s ever been, her movements both elegant and almost disdainful. He’s not sure if he can say the same for himself, isn’t sure what would be worse.

“You said you were coming in a few days,” Balthazar says, and wishes he could sound less pitiful.

Rosa’s lips tighten, and for a brief second she looks almost tired. “Things were pushed up, in light of certain events. Shall we go, then?”

“Where?” Balthazar gets off his bed and reaches for his keys.

She shrugs, a graceful rise and fall of her shoulders. “Wherever you think is best.”

Balthazar says the first thing that comes to mind. “Boyet’s? It’s this coffee shop…”

Rosa purses her lips. “I am familiar with Boyet’s.” She flips her hair over her shoulder. “Shall we?”

When they move into the living room, Freddie and Ben are still there, Ben looking somewhat frightened, Freddie as if she’s entirely unsure what to make of the situation.

“So, uh, you know Balthazar, then?” Freddie says uncertainly.

“Oh, yeah, this is my sister, Rosa,” Balthazar says. “Rosa, some of my flatmates, Ben and Freddie.”

“Balthazar, why didn’t I know you had a sister?” Ben says, his eyes wide.

“Some?” Rosa says, not bothering to hide her piqued interest. “Who else are you flatting with?”

“Yeah, she travels a lot, probably explains why you haven’t met her,” Balthazar says, waving his hand around vaguely. “And, uh, you remember Peter Donaldson, yeah?”

“I follow him on tumblr,” Rosa says, her lips quirking into a small, sharp smile. “Balthazar, you didn’t tell me you were flatting with _Peter Donaldson_.”

“We should be heading out,” Balthazar says, smiling apologetically at Ben and Freddie. “I can cook dinner tonight, if you guys like?”

“Sure, sounds good,” Freddie says in a voice that suggests she’s distracted, which Balthazar might believe if her gaze wasn’t so trained on Rosa. Which, in turn, Balthazar might be concerned about if she wasn’t so clearly confused. “But don’t forget the curfew!”

As soon as they leave the flat, Rosa says, “Your flatmates are interesting.”

“They’re pretty cool, once you get to know them,” Balthazar says with a shrug. He decides it’s probably not the best idea to mention that Freddie is a hunter.

“Peter Donaldson, though?” She nudges his arm, an attempt at being playful. He supposes it works as well as it can, for someone who is hundreds of years old, and who hasn’t seen him in what’s felt like that long. “I’ve known you had these flatmates for, what, over half a year now? You might have mentioned their names before, even. But you never said a thing about Peter.”

Balthazar resists the urge to sigh. Rosa saying she knows about his flatmates, of course, leads to an avenue of conversation that seems increasingly unavoidable with each passing second, unpleasant as it is almost certainly going to be. “It’s been too long, Rosa.” _Because of me_ , he doesn’t say. “I’d really love to hear about all the places you’ve been since the last time we saw each other.”

He does not miss the glance she shoots him, but he also does not miss the almost imperceptible sigh she lets out.

“Well. Okay. There’s this commune in the Welsh countryside – so isolated, hardly any contact with humans, but the landscape is so _lush_ …”

The stories of her travels wash over him gently, reminding him of how rapt he used to hang onto her every word when he was younger. Despite the time they’ve spent apart, despite everything, something about her stories always manages to put a part of him, significant no matter how small, at ease. Even so, he misses the years when the only thing he felt about listening to his sister speak was happiness.

The walk to Boyet’s feels even shorter than usual, somehow. “Could you order me an almond milk chai latte, please?” Rosa says primly, her eyes sweeping over the interior of the shop.

“You’re actually going to order something?” Balthazar smiles, despite himself. “What happened to your impossibly high standards?”

“Boyet’s has never disappointed me before,” Rosa says, distractedly. “I’ll meet you by the window, then?”

Their usual spot. Balthazar tries not to let himself be filled with foreboding. “Of course.”

Kit’s behind the counter today, reliable as ever. “Balthazar,” he says, his face splitting into a grin.

Balthazar places his orders and follows up with a quick thank you.

“Yeah, of course,” Kit says with a wave of his hand. “Who’s the lovely lady with you?”

“Oh.” Balthazar glances back at Rosa. “My sister.”

“Rosa? That sister?” Kit squints thoughtfully. “Her reputation precedes her. I’ve never met her before, though.”

“Her reputation?” Balthazar feels himself frown, fearing the worst. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I mean…” Kit turns away to work on the coffee orders, speaking over his shoulder. There’s no one in line behind Balthazar, he has to remind himself. “I’ve just heard about her from Boyet. Apparently, she and his family have history.”

“Oh?”

“Good history,” Kit says, pushing up his glasses. “I think.”

“Oh.”

“Well, here you are, then.” Balthazar does not question how fast it took for Kit to make the coffees, just takes them in hand and is grateful for the warmth. “Tell her hi for me, or something.”

“Don’t want to come tell her that yourself?” Balthazar tilts his head toward their seat in what he hopes is an inviting manner.

“Nah.” Kit shoots him a knowing look. “Don’t wanna get in between whatever you’ve got going on. Seems important.”

Balthazar swallows. “You’re a perceptive one.”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve been around the block once or twice.” Kit waves his hand, a strange smile on his face. “Later then, man.”

Balthazar heads for the table Rosa’s sitting at and places their drinks on the table. “My friend Kit says hi. And also that you know Boyet?”

“I know his family.” Rosa sips at her latte. “Mm. Not bad.”

Balthazar is almost impressed; it’s the highest compliment he’s ever heard her give human food. “I sense a story.”

Rosa puts her drink down. “For another day. We have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Balthazar exhales. “Right.”

“It’s been a week since our last conversation.” Rosa arches an eyebrow. “Have you thought on what we spoke of?”

Balthazar presses his lips together. “Something like that.”

“Well, you need to think harder, and faster.” He’s used to Rosa’s bluntness, of course, but there’s an urgency to her words now that he’s rarely heard before. Elves don’t tend to feel urgency. The idea that she could makes him nervous. “There’s not much time left.”

Balthazar stares down at his hands. “What do you mean?”

Rosa takes in a deep breath. “Our family sent me here, you know. It’s my next charge, and I’m not to leave until I get conclusive results.”

To her credit, she doesn’t seem quite that pleased to deliver the news. Still, Balthazar can guess what she means, and he has a sudden desire not to hear what she has to say next, though he knows that he must.

“We can’t force you to come back,” Rosa says seriously. “You know that, of course. But you leaving unannounced, not telling anyone, not telling _me_ – “

She breaks off, suddenly and sharply, the first time the whole conversation she hasn’t spoken with an impassive expression and a still voice. She’s lost her composure, Balthazar realizes, and guilt twists at his gut because he knows why.

Within moments, however, her face is calm once more. “It’s left things in a bit of an upset.”

His people – Rosa – have a tendency to understate things. He can guess at what lies behind Rosa’s words.

“It’s my decision,” Balthazar says. He hates saying these words out loud, hates having to explain himself to someone who used to understand him so well he didn’t have to, but he knows they’re necessary. “I have the right to choose which world to align with, to choose how I live my life…”

“You’re a prince,” Rosa says harshly. “More than that, you are a crown prince who is to be of age soon. It’s not just your decision, not at this point.”

Balthazar turns his gaze toward the window. Anywhere, really, but Rosa’s blazing countenance.

“Balthazar,” Rosa says, with all the gravity of an angel announcing the world’s demise, “if you don’t return by your birthday, our family is going to lose the crown.”

He’s known, on some level at least, that this was coming. Still, to hear it put in those terms, out loud, is as jarring as being doused with a bucket of cold water. This was the kind of dilemma he tried to escape last year. He should have known, of course, that running away from it - from his blood and his responsibilities; from where he should belong, but doesn’t - was never going to be possible. More than that, he should have known how selfish it was, and how guilty that would make him feel now.

“Rosa, you – “

“Balthazar, please,” Rosa says, tiredly. “You know I can’t. The crown is yours, or it will be, one day. There is no one else.”

Yes, he knows. Balthazar knows that Rosa renounced the crown, sacrificed a great deal, in fact, to become an ambassador. He’s thought about it too much these last few years.

“If I go back,” Balthazar answers, and it’s a wonder his voice doesn’t shake, “I can never return to the human world.”

But that’s why he left in the first place, isn’t it? If he’s here, far away from the kingdom, he can delude himself into thinking there will always be a way for him to come back, if he so wishes someday. He can pretend living in Wellington is, in the long run, an impermanent decision. If he’s here, he doesn’t have to remember that in less than a year’s time, the elven realms will have entirely retreated from the human world, just like the fae before them.

For the briefest of moments, Rosa’s expression softens. “I know. It won’t be easy. It won’t be easy to face the consequences when… if you come home. But you know it’s about more than just me and you.”

His family. His duties. His people. It’s a mantra that’s been stamped into his thoughts from what feels like birth.

“I am sorry, Balthazar,” Rosa says. It’s the gentlest he’s heard her voice in years.

“I know.” He smiles faintly. “Trust me, Rosa, I know.” This has always been bigger than them, than him. It doesn’t matter, in the end, what he wants, not for someone whose life has never been his own even before he was born. Not for someone like him.

Rosa sighs, then. “It was, perhaps, a mistake to reunite on a note like this. It has been a while since we last saw each other, Balthazar. I missed you.”

It’s not a light statement to make, he knows, and he knows that hundreds of years can pass by for an elf in the blink of an eye at the same time that a day crawls by like a grain of sand in an hourglass. He can recognize it as an attempt, on her part, to make peace with him, despite all the ways he’s hurt her this last year. It loosens something in his heart, something that makes him ache.

“I missed you too,” he says, and means it.

A ghost of a smile flickers across Rosa’s face. “I know I’ve given you a lot to think about. You deserve the time to think about it, at least. You know your limits, though. We _are_ running out of time; you mustn’t forget.”

“No,” he says. “Of course not.”

They leave Boyet’s soon after that, and Rosa suggests they walk through Wellington as they catch up. She sips at her drink leisurely as she regales him with her tales. She avoids mention of Boyet, so he takes mental note to ask her again at some point in the future, but this is nice, better than on their way to Boyet’s, even. It reminds him of the day trips she’d take him on every time she visited him back in Auckland, after their business had been – tensely, usually – tended to, and they had the rest of the afternoon to themselves before she had to leave again. Except this time, it seems, she’s going to be around for a lot longer than a day, and the thought makes his heart soar a bit, despite their conversation in the coffee shop, despite everything.

He will have to think about it. He already is, if he’s being honest with himself, already was through all these months of tension and guilt and silence. But under the weak sun, walking by his sister, he remembers what it’s like not to have silence and tension and pain between them, and it feels nice. It feels good.

Some time after that, he checks his watch and says, “If I’m going to be cooking the flat dinner, I need to leave soon.”

“Sure. We have plenty of time to see each other this week,” Rosa says with a small smile.

“You don’t need a place to stay, do you? We just made some new flat rules, and we can’t have overnight guests…”

Rosa waves her hand dismissively. “I’ve made arrangements with one of our own – his name is Kel.”

“A warrior?” Balthazar asks. Some elves, decorated warriors, live outside their lands as a primary line of defense. It makes sense that Rosa would know some of them.

Rosa nods once. “Tomorrow, then. Or whenever you’re free. And Balthazar?”

“Yeah?”

“Promise me you will think about this tonight. Properly.” Her eyes are as solemn as gravestones.

He pulls his sleeves over his hands. “Promise.”

Dinner that night is tense. For the first time since Freddie’s accusation and its subsequent drama, everyone is eating together, the quiet scraping of cutlery against plates the only sound in the flat. Balthazar keeps his eyes on his plate and goes over Rosa’s earlier words.

It’s not just your decision, she’d said, and he knows it’s true, but it doesn’t make him hate it any less.

“So,” Ben starts, pulling Balthazar out of his thoughts and pushing his empty plate away, “you didn’t tell us you had a sister because...?”

Peter looks up, and his eyes meet Balthazar’s briefly before he turns his gaze to Ben. “Rosa visited?” he asks, surprised.

“Uh, yeah,” Ben says. “Like, around twelve. You knew?”

“I follow her on tumblr,” he shrugs, still not looking at Balthazar.

“He met her a few years ago,” Balthazar provides. “And I guess it just didn’t come up.”

It’s a weak excuse, and everyone knows it.

“Like I said,” he continues. “She was always travelling, and—“

Freddie scoffs, waving her fork in the air. “’She was travelling’ is not a viable excuse, here. We’re your flatmates; we’re supposed to know this sort of stuff.”

“We don’t need to know everything,” Peter retorts. “Balth is just a private person. It’s not as if we know every thrilling detail of your home life, anyway.”

She flinches, eyes flashing, but says nothing.

It’s comforting to Balthazar, that Peter will still defend him, even when he won’t meet his eyes for more than a moment. It means that things are still the same between them, that there are some things that will not change, even when everything around them has.

Then again, he thinks, with a cold stab of realisation, that might not be the case much longer.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Rosa and I don’t have a very close relationship, so I guess it just didn’t occur to me. I’m sorry, though.”

Ben huffs. “Three years,” he mutters, then, “Ah, whatever. Have a nice talk? She looked pissed.”

Freddie laughs, the confusion and frustration of Rosa’s abrupt arrival evidently wearing off. “Oh my god, Peter, you should have seen it. She just burst in, didn’t even knock, looked Ben straight in the eye, and said ‘where the hell is Balthazar Jones,’ in the quietest voice you could imagine. And, I swear to god, it was like the room had turned to ice.”

“I don’t like her very much,” Ben pouts, scowling. “No, offense, Balth.”

Balthazar shrugs. “Rosa makes her own enemies,” he says. The elven countenance is hardly well-received by humans at the best of times, and his sister had been furious.

“No, but really,” Freddie continues. “It was like she was, I don’t know, ethere—“

“Ah, ah, ah!” Ben shouts, almost knocking over his chair. “Rule one-a!”

“Oh come on,” she protests. “It was a metaphor; it’s hardly a breach of the rules.”

“I don’t know,” Peter says. “It was a reference. Do references count?”

Balthazar shakes his head. “Nah, surely not,” he says. “It wasn’t even complete, anyway.”

Freddie nods frantically. “Exactly. Not full, and thus not a breach of the rules.”

Balthazar relaxes into his seat, the headache that had been building all day flaring.

Ben frowns. “Fine,” he says, then brightens. “I’ve got a skype call with Bea in, like, two minutes, anyway.” He picks up his plate. “Adios, guys.”

Freddie picks up hers, too. “I have an exam to study for. Thanks for dinner, Stan.”

They leave, and Balthazar and Peter sit in awkward silence for a moment. It’s unfamiliar, this silence, so out of character for the two of them that Balthazar doesn’t know what to do.

After a few minutes, Peter sighs, then picks up his own plate. “Dinner was good, bro,” he says, and it feels like everything should be back to normal with that sentence but it isn’t.

Then he leaves, too, and Balthazar is left alone at the table with his thoughts, and it feels as though they may drown him.

Balthazar walks back to his room, and the exhaustion hits him full force, all at once. He drops into his desk chair and stares at his black computer screen, where he’d seen Hero and Ursula’s smiling faces just hours before. How is he supposed to start thinking about this? Where does he even begin?

Hero mentioned her piano lessons with enthusiasm. The elves do not take piano lessons. The elves do not approve of music at all, not outside the most ceremonious of traditions or the brief confines of their summer festivals. At the thought, he cannot bear to look at the guitars leaning against his wall, the instruments he bought in secrecy with money he saved for years.

And what of love? His people, his family, are so cold. He cannot imagine finding love in the elven realms, not when he already has it with his friends, friends he does not have in his kingdom, he’s been away for far too long; not when he already has it with…

But –

But to stay in the human world – to renounce his people, his own _family_ , for people who are growing increasingly hostile towards his kind by the year, for people who can pass him by in the blink of an eye or less – is just as unthinkable.

If he stays, he could lose everything. But if he goes, he could lose himself.

A few months, he thinks with a heady sort of desperation, is not nearly enough time for a decision like this.

 

 

_The summer festival of Balthazar’s eighteenth year is, on the surface, no different to any in the past. Just as in previous years, it is bright and merry, music and magic entwining through the damp summer air._

_Rosa peers at the sky from where she is seated on the grass next to him, helping him weave a mass of flower jewellery far greater than either of them could wear. “We’re fortunate it didn’t rain this year,” she observes, fingers moving fast and precise despite her lack of focus._

_Balthazar nods. “It might soon, though.” The sky is overcast despite the day’s heat, and he’s sure all his human friends must be sweltering. The thought makes him snort lightly._

_Rosa glances at him, arching an eyebrow. “Something funny?” she asks. “Are you looking at the foreign dignitaries’ hair again?”_

_He bites back his half-laugh; it’s easy to forget, for all his time in the human realm, that the elves do not give into more overt displays of emotion. “No,” he replies, shaking his head. “Just a thought.”_

_Rosa huffs. “Pity,” she sighs. “I wanted someone else to have caught some of this year’s disasters.”_

**_Go ahead and find someone who will_ ** _, Balthazar wants to tease, but the words stick in his throat and drop to his stomach. It’s an out, he knows, a gracious escape from a topic she doesn’t want to broach, but he doesn’t want to risk her leaving, not even with a half-considered joke, not now._

_“I like the music this year,” he says instead, then winces internally as someone hits a wrong note._

_Rosa catches it on his face and looks up to the overcast sky. “You could probably do better,” she says, “if only you weren’t crown prince.”_

_“Probably,” agrees Balthazar, then, “but I am crown prince, and I can do better.”_

_Rosa doesn’t look at him. “That doesn’t matter,” she says mildly. “Your duties prevent it.”_

_He shrugs, knows she has to catch it out of the corner of her eye. “I could do both,” he replies._

_She huffs, half a laugh. “Unlikely. Your time in the human realm has expired; it’s time for you to step into your responsibilities.”_

_“Why?” he asks, suddenly feeling like a small child again. Balthazar is young, he knows, young in the eyes of all those around him, of his parents’, of Rosa’s. He has not even reached the age of elven majority, yet. He’s not sure Rosa remembers what it was like to be his age._

_Rosa turns to look at him, then, fingers stilling. “There’s no use in pointless questions,” she warns. “Especially ones you know the answer to.”_

_Balthazar meets her eyes and swallows, throat tight. “That’s not an answer.”_

_Rosa shakes her head. “That is a question you have to answer yourself.”_

_He turns his face away. “Because it is simply not done,” he says, voice flat as he recites a diatribe he’s heard too many times before. “Because revelry and frivolity are fae pastimes, human pastimes; because the elves are above it all.”_

_Rosa nods. “That is the way it is,” she says._

_“But I don’t understand **why**.” He swallows again, fixes his eyes on the gently swaying grass. “Why do we not do what we love?”_

_“Love is not a word to be thrown around lightly,” Rosa sighs. “Our hearts do not work the same way as your humans. We do not **love** coffee or **love** nature or **love** books. When our hearts seize upon something or someone, they never let go. We pour all of our love into this, and our love, unlike humans’, is limited. We love until we have no love left to give.” She gives him a sharp look. “Why are you asking me? You know all this.”_

_Balthazar presses his lips together. “If your love is so rare that you can only ever love one thing,” he asks, voice barely above a breath. “Why do you care so much about the kingdom? Why do you care about me? Why do you care about quality of coffee? Why can I not love music and you and the human realms and here and…” He stutters to a stop, his outburst fading into the damp air. He looks up at his sister, and sees nothing in her face._

_She rises, brushing petals off her hands. “Let us go for a walk, shall we?”_

_He nods, breath caught in his throat, strangling his words before they reach his lips._

_They make their way out of the tight knot of the festival, Rosa greeting other elves that Balthazar never learnt the names and positions of with careful, traditional grace. Once they have travelled out of reach of the music, she turns to him, face still unreadable._

_“You are a child,” she tells him, matter of fact. “You are a child, but you still know these things. You know why.”_

_“No,” he says, heart pounding wildly. “I don’t.”_

_Rosa shakes her head. “I knew sending you to live with the humans was a terrible idea,” she says. “I told mother and father it was a terrible idea, and yet… I’m sorry, Balthazar, for not doing more to prevent it.”_

_When was the last time he had heard her apologise? “There is nothing to say sorry for, though,” he protests._

_“No,” she says. “If I had, then you would understand.”_

_“Understand what?”_

_Rosa’s forehead creases. “ **You are not one of them** ,” she stresses, more emotion present in her voice than in any other elf he’s ever heard._

_Balthazar steps away from her, back hitting a tree. “I don’t… I wasn’t…”_

_“Please, brother, hear me out on this.” Rosa takes a breath, face clearing, carefully set in a mask he’s never been able to peer through. “You are not one of them,” she repeats, calmer. “You cannot pour the love you have into so much at once. You cannot spread yourself so thin. Balth, you love too deeply. Look at us, brother. We are **elves**. We are immortal. We are different.”_

_“Not so different.”_

_Rosa shakes her head. “We are,” she says. “We are just as different as the elders have always taught. They are mortal and petty and we are everlasting and reserved. And perhaps—perhaps they go on about elven superiority, but, in many ways, we have the short end of the stick. Humans have short lives—they live and they love and they die, and that is all. They wonder about eternity, but we are the ones who live it. And their lives, however short, are filled with more love than we could ever imagine.” She takes his hand, rough fingers cradling his softly, and holds it to his chest. It is the most she has touched him since he was barely more than an infant and still running to her about his nightmares. “Our hearts beat differently to theirs,” she tells him. “They take and discard love as they please, and they never run dry.” He feels his own pulse beating under his fingertips, and knows she is telling the truth, and hates it with all his being. “We cannot sustain such a feat, not for long. Not unless we wish to burn, and unravel under the pressure of it. Love for a human can never end well for an elf.”_

_“I don’t…”_

_“Think about it, Balthazar,” she says. “Your human, Pedro? His own mind and heart have changed so much in this past year. He will continue to change until the day he dies. And he will grow older with every passing day, and, one day, he will keep growing, and you will stop. He doesn’t even believe in magic; how betrayed do you think he’ll feel to find that you’ve been a magical all along? And then, not long after that, not by our standards, he will die. You will be left, Balthazar, with all your love invested in this one human, in all the humans around you, and they will be gone, and you will live on. How is that situation appealing in any way?”_

_Balthazar shakes his head. “I’ll heal, though,” he insists, though the scenario she describes makes him ill. “I’ll heal, and I’ll live, and I’ll be fine.”_

_“If only that were how it worked for us,” Rosa sighs. “Humans change and heal and develop, but not us. Never us. You will be **alone** , eternally. **That** is why you must fulfil your duty. **That** is why you must stay here, with us. That is why you must give up music, and give up this farce of humanity you have forced upon yourself.”_

_Balthazar looks away. Her grip softens, dies, hand withdrawing sharply. His own falls to his side._

_She steps back. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I’m sorry you had to learn this. I’m sorry this is the case; I wish it weren’t. I wish you didn’t love a human. I wish you didn’t love so many.”_

_“It’s not something you can fix,” he says, throat and eyes burning._

_“I wish it were.”_

_This, he knows, is the closest to **I love you**_ _he will ever get._

_“Thank you,” he says, and it means **I love you, too**._

_Rosa nods. “I have to go, tomorrow,” she says. “Even the summer festival doesn’t keep an ambassador from work, not so close to our departure. I’ll see you when I get back?”_

_“Of course,” Balthazar answers, and hopes, just this once, that she won’t see through his lie. That she won’t realise the phone that he hides under his bedding is still on, the texts it holds telling a damning story._

**From: Pedro Donaldson  
** Where are you, bro?

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** Seriously where are you???

 **From: Pedro Donaldson:  
** Did you forget we had plans?

 **To: Pedro Donaldson  
** I’m fine.  At a family reunion.

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
**????????????

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** You didn’t tell me????

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** We were seriously worried

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** /I/ was seriously worried

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** You need to tell us this sort of stuff

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** What if something had happened???

 **From: Pedro Donaldson:  
** You didn’t even say goodbye :(

 **To: Pedro Donaldson  
** I’m fine, really. I’m sorry for worrying you.

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** It’s okay. Just please tell me next time you decide to go AWOL.

 **To: Pedro Donaldson  
** I will. I’ll be home soon, anyway.

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** When???

 **To: Pedro Donaldson  
** A couple of weeks, probably.

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** :) :) :) See you then, bro.

 **From: Pedro Donaldson  
** I’m glad you’re OK.

_Rosa’s lips quirk in a hint of a smile. “I’ll see you in a couple of months, then,” she says, and turns on her heel._

_He wonders what her reaction will be when she receives word from their parents that he had left not long after she did._

_He thinks of his guitar and his other instruments, stored safely in the human realms, of all his friends, the love he has for them and them for him, and the different sort of love he has for Peter, and he cannot bring himself to be sorry._

_It starts to rain, then, and Balthazar pretends the water dripping onto his lips does not taste of salt._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A beautiful edit for this chapter by the lovely [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/) can be found [ here](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/137924823720/our-hearts-beat-differently-to-theirs-they-take)!


	8. Chapter 8

Rosa promised, in her own strange way, to give Balthazar some time to himself, for which he is grateful. He knows she won’t ask him to decide anything before she leaves, because she will have to soon and because Rosa is many things but cruel is not one of them. Anyway, what is he supposed to do, lock himself in his room and totally ignore everything else that’s going on while he tries to figure his shit out? There’s his flatmates to deal with. There’s the rules. There’s his schoolwork, and though it feels like such a silly thing to fixate on, it gives him some focus outside of his treacherous thoughts, so he can’t afford to let it slide.

He has a feeling it’ll be a trying week, and he tries very hard not to think too much about it. He’s done that enough in his lifetime that it’s almost instinctual.

Lately, he’s fallen into a bit of a habit of bringing his work to Boyet’s after his last class. He doesn’t usually study outside his room – even libraries can get too busy, some days – but for some reason the low chatter in the coffee shop, the gentle movements and soft music playing in the background, puts him at ease more than it distracts him. And, anyway, he’s starting to come to terms with the fact that he’s just looking for an excuse not to be in the flat.

If he’s not in the flat, he doesn’t have to think about all the things they’ve said and done, wounding each other on purpose or on accident, but it doesn’t matter if any of them meant to or not because it still hurts, doesn’t it? If he’s not in the flat, he doesn’t have to wonder whether staying or leaving would be the better choice; he doesn’t have to feel guilty that he doesn’t begin to know how to answer that question. If he’s not in the flat, it’s easier to pretend that everything is okay, with his flatmates, with Peter, with himself.

It’s on one such occasion at Boyet’s that he happens to look up from a set of song lyrics he’s been fiddling with for the past few days - working on his music has always been the best of distractions during the hardest of times - and catches a glimpse of Freddie at the counter, ordering coffee from Kit.

He wills his pulse to slow down, a bit annoyed at how much it jumped at the sight – she’s just ordering coffee, and look, she’s smiling, she can’t possibly know, can she? – and waves her over when he can tell she’s caught a glimpse of him.

“Hello, Balthazar,” she says as she approaches, waving awkwardly. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Yeah, same,” he agrees, cautiously cheerful. “This your first time here?”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve heard some amazing things about the coffee and I finally had some time to check it out,” Freddie says, taking a seat next to him. “And anyway, isn’t it nice to get out of the flat every now and then?”

Balthazar’s first instinct is that she has no idea how nice it is. But of course she does.

“Yeah, always good to have a bit of a change, I think.”

She’s placed her phone on the table, and at that moment it vibrates. She looks at the screen and grimaces, switching it off. Balthazar just manages to glimpse a word that might have read ‘Mother’. The thought crosses his mind, briefly, that perhaps he isn’t the only one pretending life lately has been as normal as it’s ever been.

“The barista seems…” Freddie tilts her head. “Interesting.”

The rules make it impossible to tell whether she’s lying or not, but then again, Freddie has never really struck Balthazar as a good liar. She seems nervous, but not wary or suspicious. “Yeah, Kit’s pretty cool.”

“Wait, his name is Kit?” She glances back at the counter, and if Balthazar didn’t know any better he might think her cheeks were slightly tinged. “ _ Your _ Kit?”

“What do you mean,  _ my _ Kit?” Balthazar says with a laugh. “I told you, he’s just a friend.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean – “ She looks again, then back at her hands. “Never mind.”

Balthazar tries not to think too much of it. If Freddie isn’t allowed to be suspicious, after all, then he should at least extend her the same courtesy.

“Hey, Balthazar. Here’s your coffee, ma’am.”

Freddie jumps visibly at the sound of Kit’s gravelly voice behind them. “Oh, uh – “

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Kit says with a laugh, placing a friendly, reassuring hand on Freddie’s arm for a brief second. The touch seems so light, so second-nature, that Freddie visibly relaxes. “It’s kind of calmed down a bit, I think, and I’ve been needing a break.”

Balthazar looks up at him and smiles brightly. “You’re more than welcome to sit down with us, if you’d like. This is Freddie Kingston, my friend and flatmate. And, uh, Kit.” Silently, he wills Kit not to mention magic in Freddie’s company, but he also knows that, contrary to outward appearances, Kit is very careful about matters concerning his own livelihood. He shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

“Uh, hi.” Freddie sticks her hand out as Kit is sitting down, and looks like she immediately regrets it. “I’m Freddie. I mean, he just said that, but – “

“Nice to meet you, Freddie,” Kit says, reaching out and taking her hand easily. She responds with a tentative, but honest smile. It’s hard to reconcile this image of her with being a hunter, but then, he rarely sees her outside the flat – the previous weekend a notable exception – let alone interacting with people who don’t live with them. Right now, it’s hard to see how she might pose a danger. She must, of course, but the longer she’s here, the harder it is for Balthazar to believe she knows where she actually is. Kit’s wards must be stronger than he thought, if they can keep even a vigilant hunter ignorant.

Freddie sips at her coffee, and her face actually lights up. “Wow. This is pretty good.”

High praise from the girl who refuses to drink any coffee in the flat that isn’t made by her. Balthazar tells her as much.

Freddie makes a face. “Okay, but what’s so wrong with having high standards for coffee?”

“Hey, just making an observation,” Balthazar says, holding up his hands.

Kit bows slightly in his seat. “I, for one, am honored.”

“Yeah, you should be,” Freddie says, but she’s smiling. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a planner. “Just out of curiosity, when are your work shifts?”

Balthazar and Kit watch in somewhat shocked silence as she holds her pencil over the timetable, expectant.

“I mean, I’m basically always here, but you don’t need to put that in your timetable, do you?” To Kit’s credit, he sounds more amused than alarmed, which Balthazar can say for a fact would not hold true for him were he in Kit’s position. Then again, Kit is perhaps not an individual who is easily taken aback.

“I mean…” Freddie’s cheeks are definitely getting pinker. “I just… It makes me feel better to have, like, a clear-cut schedule? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – ”

“Oh.” Kit pushes his glasses up his nose, and grins. “Not at all. Seriously! You can come in whenever you’d like, I’ll probably be here. I work full-time.”

“Oh, really?” Freddie taps her pen against her chin thoughtfully. “Aren’t you in school?”

Kit shrugs, nonchalant and graceful all at once. “I like it here.”

It is, pretty obviously, not an answer to her question. She purses her lips. “But, like, did you apply, or…?”

“I dunno. I didn’t really feel the need to.”

“Didn’t feel the need to apply to uni?” Freddie says incredulously, as if she can’t conceive of anyone who is perceivably their age to not need to apply to school.

Letting go a little of his concern over Freddie inadvertently finding her way into a magical hotspot means Balthazar can find the juxtaposition of these two personalities both amusing and endearing. He can imagine Kit attending uni whenever the whim strikes him, and wonders how many times he’s sat through long lectures, how many degrees Kit’s received from human institutions. Maybe he doesn’t have any degrees at all. He can see that, too.

“I think I might have meant to, at one point?” Kit is saying, squinting thoughtfully at the ceiling. “But I’m pretty sure it just totally slipped my mind?”

“It  _ slipped _ your  _ mind _ ?” Freddie sounds positively scandalized.

“But it’s all right!” Kit leans back in his seat, grinning. “I sort of just walked in here one day – I’d heard all sorts of interesting things about the owner – and, like, what do you know, Boyet himself happens to be working behind the counter! Good man, that Boyet. He hired me on the spot, no interviews or anything. He could tell I have good energy, I think.”

Freddie’s eyes are wide, and getting wider. This would be a good time, probably, to make an exit.

“Hey, Freds, I was going to get some groceries before heading home,” Balthazar says, glancing at his watch. “I could use the help.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” Freddie clears her throat. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr...?”

Kit laughs, low and rumbling. “Kit’s perfectly fine. You have good energy too, Freddie Kingston.”

Freddie doesn’t answer, but she smiles the tiniest of smiles, and Balthazar is glad for the relief he feels at the sight.

Perhaps it’s not so bad of an idea to let Freddie know his magical friends. They know how to protect themselves if worse comes to worst, don’t they? He can see that their encounter did some good for Freddie, at least for a short while.

“So I guess you’ll be back, then,” Balthazar says when they leave Boyet’s, shifting the strap of his bag slightly on his shoulder.

“It’s good coffee,” Freddie says almost defensively, but her smile is honest, and Balthazar wills himself not to worry.

Still, when they go grocery shopping, he shoots Kit a message, their numbers exchanged at the last astronomy club meeting, because Kit deserves honesty, and the warning.

**To: Kit** **  
** _ I should probably tell you Freddie’s a hunter _

**From: Kit** **  
** _ Yeah, I could tell. She’s harmless, though. Don’t worry about it :) _

Balthazar doesn’t quite know what to make of this message, doesn’t know how Kit could possibly be able to tell that she poses no harm, but somehow he trusts Kit’s judgment. Kit, if nothing else, is someone who can take care of himself.

When they get home, it’s almost too late to make dinner. “Can we order pizza?” Ben says from the couch, Latin flashcards in hand. “Please? Please please please?”

“Only if you don’t heap it with toppings none of the rest of us like,” Freddie says from the kitchen, where she’s arranging the groceries. “I mean, we need to keep to a budget too, right?”

Ben makes a face. “Not like I can order pepperoni, now, can I?”

“Thank god you can’t get sardines, honestly,” Balthazar says.

“You people have horrible taste.” Ben sighs dramatically. “But I will submit to your tyrannical rules.”

“It’s not tyrannical if you’re being outruled by a majority,” Freddie calls from the kitchen.

“Says who?!”

“New flat rule,” Balthazar says.

“I can never win.” Ben throws down his flashcards. “To hell with it, I’m ordering pizza right this minute. I’m hungry as fuck.”

“All right, but no artichokes,” Freddie warns.

“Or olives!” Peter’s voice, slightly muffled, rings from his room.

“Good god, Peter, I didn’t even know you were in,” Ben yells back. “And what the hell do you have against olives?”

“I second that, actually,” Freddie says. “No olives. Majority wins yet again!”

“Hey, hey, it’s not a majority if all the flatmates haven’t voted yet.” Ben turns to Balthazar, eyes pleading. “Please. Balthazar. Put me out of my misery.”

“Sorry, Ben, I’m vegan all the time,” Balthazar laughs. “I have to make my own thing anyway. You’re on your own.”

“Argh!”

They eventually settle for cheese.

When the pizza comes, Ben brings it to the dinner table humming a ridiculously out of tune version of what is probably supposed to be some sort of victorious fanfare. They all eat around the dinner table together for the second time that week, which is probably breaking some sort of world record. The conversation is pleasant, entertaining, even. When Balthazar makes his own dinner, he isn’t made fun of, no teasing jeers or well-meant jabs about his weird alternative milk. When Peter comes out from his room, Ben doesn’t call him a vampire emerging from his cave, an insult that would have easily dropped from his tongue just a week ago. No one fights; no one discusses anything out of the ordinary. He should be grateful for the bland enthusiasm with which they all approach each other now. Better to be bland, better to silently agree to pretend the last week hasn’t happened, than more days of the same awful tension that sometimes felt like poison under his skin, a disease with no cure, an ache with no end.

Then why is it still so difficult to feel at ease?

After dinner, he gets a call from Paige. It’s been a few days, maybe about half a week since they last talked, and he blinks at the her name flashing across his phone screen for a few moments, unsure whether he should feel guilty or relieved. Then he remembers that the polite thing to do when someone is calling you is to actually pick up, and he reaches for the phone.

“Hey, Balthazar!” she greets, voice as bright as ever. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Sure, sure.” He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s been a bit busy for me lately, my sister’s visiting and I’ve got a fuckton of assignments to finish for school… What’s up?”

“Your sister?” Paige sounds delighted. “You have a sister? How long’s she going to be around?”

“Oh, yeah, her name’s Rosa. She’ll be here for the week, I guess?” It is probably wise not to mention the purpose for her visit.

“Oh, that sounds nice.”

“Sure,” he agrees. Despite everything, it’s something he can say honestly.

“Anyway, Chelsey and I want to know if you’ll be at the next astronomy club meeting? It’ll be dreadfully boring without you around…” She pauses, as if in thought. “Wait, I have an idea – you should bring Rosa! I know everyone would really love to meet her.”

The idea of Rosa at a human party, even if most of the partygoers won’t be, is both amusing and somewhat terrifying. “I’m not sure that’s her thing, really.”

“Well, ask her anyway, please? We always appreciate newcomers.” Paige hums to herself for a few seconds. “Oh, yeah, and I’ve been meaning to tell you – I finally finished up that song. Cloud Control?”

“Oh, yeah? I get to hear it sometime, right?”

“Yeah, actually, it would be nice to have your help backing it and all. I’d really like to debut it at the open mic night tomorrow at Boyet’s. The only problem is, I don’t think it’ll work as well without a third person on the harmonies, and Chelsey can’t sing, and all my other musician friends are busy? I mean, even Kit has a shift tomorrow. Do you know anyone, by any chance?”

“Yeah, I can do it tomorrow. As for people who might help...”

Balthazar stops mid-thought. His first instinct, of course, is that no, he doesn’t know anyone. Freddie or Ben might have the time, but honestly the song is probably better off without a third singer than if they had one of  _ them  _ trying to help. Peter has a good voice and takes direction well, but is almost certainly going to be busy. But then, as he’s mentally flipping through the list of all the people he knows who can sing, he stumbles upon a dangerous, terrible idea, and it’s the best thing he’s thought of in years.

“I can ask Rosa,” he says.

“Rosa can sing?” Paige says incredulously. “But they say that elves – “

“I can ask her,” Balthazar repeats. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll ask.”

“Well, that sounds great, then. Let me know what she says as soon as possible, yeah?”

He feels rather accomplished, all the way through their farewells and hanging up, before it fully hits him what he just decided on an impulse. Asking Rosa to go to a party with him is one thing, of course. Asking her to violate the very customs of their people, when he has never known her to do anything but follow and believe in them completely and wholeheartedly, is entirely another.

But it’s music, of all things that are near to his heart - that make up the very essence of who he is - and though it’s been almost a decade he can still hear Rosa’s beautiful, aching voice from behind a closed door, echoing through the faintest of his memories, a sound almost as innate to him as the feeling of his own pulse. Maybe she’s been known to make exceptions for the rules. And maybe, just this one time, she’ll finally understand why he would ask this of her in the first place.

So when Balthazar meets Rosa for breakfast the next morning, he doesn’t feel nervous about it as he might on a different day, with something different at stake. They don’t bring up their last conversation, which he can’t help but be grateful for. Rosa orders a drink with a long and complicated name, and manages not to make a face when she sips at it. They people watch for a bit, playing an old favorite game of making up the lives of the strangers that pass them by, and Balthazar laughs like he hasn’t in ages, not even minding that Rosa doesn’t so much as crack a smile.

“He definitely has the looks of a professional cat herder about him.”

“Has a lover, but tragically they live all the way in France.”

“Boring fancy-pants business consultant by day, disco dancer extraordinaire by night.”

The conversation slows to a comfortable silence. Rosa stirs at her drink occasionally, but for the most part gazes somewhere behind him, a distant look in her eyes. Balthazar wonders if she ever misses any of the places she’s been to, or any of the people. Somehow, it’s hard to imagine her feeling sentimental. But, of course, that part isn’t Rosa’s fault.

“So when exactly are you leaving, Rosa?” Balthazar says.

Rosa raises an eyebrow. “Eager to get rid of me so soon, eh?”

“Of course not.” Balthazar looks down at his hands.

Rosa sighs. “Well, I don’t have a real deadline or anything, as I said, but between you and me, I’m not sure I’d really want to stay for much longer. Wellington is a nice little town, I suppose, but I have places to be, you know? I have my work.”

Balthazar still finds it reassuring, despite himself, that Rosa doesn’t enjoy being around. Not that he wouldn’t want her close by, of course, but the present circumstances are less than ideal for them both.

“And anyway,” Rosa continues, “I doubt my presence is helping you make up your mind. Don’t give me that look, Balthazar, and don’t try to spare my feelings. I know it’s difficult. Honestly, if I left for a bit, took care of my own affairs, and came back after you’d had more time, no one would be any the wiser, would they?”

It’s very thoughtful of her, and Balthazar tries not to feel bad about the fact that he’s surprised at that. But he knows better than to accept outright - it is Rosa’s decision, and not an offer - and decides this is as good a place as any in the conversation to ask what he’s been meaning to.

“Well,” he says, “while I still have you around, there’s this thing I’m a part of. Astronomy club? It’s a way to get to know people in the area who are… like us. They have a party this weekend, if you want to tag along?”

“All right, sure,” Rosa says. 

Balthazar blinks. That was easier than anticipated.

Rosa cocks an eyebrow at him and says, “What? Did you think I was going to say no to a bit of fun? It’s not like Kel’s apartment is the most exciting place in the world to be, Balthazar.”

“Well, all right,” Balthazar admits. “I just didn’t think it was your scene.”

“Balthazar,” Rosa says, a faint smile on her lips, “I’ve spent hundreds of years among the humans. You think I don’t know how to party? Really, I’m hurt.”

“I can’t believe I ever doubted you,” Balthazar says dryly.

“I’ve partied in at least fifteen different countries. I’ve partied with  _ human royalty _ !”

“All right, all right,” he says, holding up his hands with a laugh. The next part is going to be difficult, probably, but Rosa’s easy acceptance is enough to bolster his confidence, and he decides if nothing else, it’s worth a shot. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Don’t push it.” Rosa tilts her head, curiosity clearly piqued. “But go ahead.”

“Okay, well…” He clears his throat, suddenly nervous. “My friend has a gig tonight, and she’s looking for a third person…”

Almost immediately, Rosa’s face becomes still. “Balthazar. Don’t ask what I think you’re about to ask.”

Against his better instincts, he pushes forward. “Do you think you could help us?”

Rosa sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Balthazar, please, I’ve done enough for you by keeping what you do a secret from our family. Don’t bring me into this more than you already have.”

On another day, perhaps, Balthazar would have just dropped the issue, letting her request take precedence over his own silent protests. But he’s spent the past few days and weeks dropping issues and dropping them, letting everyone else think it was fine, letting himself think that; and music is important to him - it feels like such an inadequate word, but there are none else that fit, not in this language - and maybe he’s tired of denying the significance of things to himself, and to everyone else around him. Maybe he’s tired of silence.

“Rosa, please,” he says. “You know how much this matters to me.”

Her face softens for the briefest of moments. “Yes, I know.”

“And I’ve heard you sing. You’re  _ so good _ – “

“Balthazar,” she warns.

“And who would even know?” Balthazar continues, undeterred. “We’re the only elves in Wellington, right? Well, us and Kel, I guess.”

Rosa is silent, her lips pressed firmly together, but Balthazar knows he’s gained ground, or else she would have already flat out refused.

“I’d owe you,” he says.

“A really big one, I’d say,” Rosa says. “And no, that’s not an acceptance.”

“I’m not trying to ignore what’s been going on,” he says, honestly. “It’s just hard to think about it, and – well, in the meantime, I can’t put my whole life on hold.”

“No, and I wouldn’t expect you to, obviously.” She sighs again, and this time it sounds the tiniest bit more sympathetic. “All right, fine. But this damn well better be a good song.”

He reminds himself not to get too excited. “Paige is brilliant. I think you’ll have some fun tonight.”

“Right,” Rosa says dubiously, but she doesn’t change her mind, and that in itself is enough for him to feel victorious.

They part ways soon after that, Balthazar making her promise to meet him at his flat later, and though Rosa shoots him a look that is filled to the brim with exasperation she doesn’t say anything about it, which also means she’s still not turning down the invitation. The idea of getting to hear Rosa sing that night – of singing with her, even! – somehow makes the heaviness that lately has felt like a permanent fixture in his heart more bearable. If he lets himself think about it too much, maybe he could fool himself into thinking he can fly.

Back at the flat, he heads into the kitchen to make some coffee and runs into Peter. He doesn’t have time to think about whether it’s a good idea to have this encounter right now - whether he’s ready to deal with the awkwardness, the silence - before Peter, looking into the fridge, turns his head around.

“Hey, you get the groceries this week? Fridgis Elba is looking unusually healthy today.”

“Me and Freddie, yeah,” Balthazar says with a nod. He reaches up for a mug. “We got you that cereal you really like. You’ve been complaining about it for ages.”

“God bless you.” Peter glances at him. “Make me a cup too?”

“Sure, sure,” Balthazar says, smiling.

“You seem peppy,” Peter says, turning back to the fridge.

“I suppose.” Balthazar moves over to the coffee machine. “Peppy’s a weird word.”

“I dunno, there’s just, like, a bounce in your step.” Peter moves away from the fridge and leans back on the counter with his elbows. “It’s kind of nice.”

“Oh.”

“I mean – “ Peter scrunches up his face, and Balthazar makes an effort not to think about how adorable it is. “Things have been weird. So it’s nice to see you in a good mood.”

“Thanks,” Balthazar says, for lack of anything better to say.

“Um. Any particular reason?”

“Yeah, I have a gig tonight,” Balthazar says. “Rosa’s singing. We’re both helping out my friend, actually. Paige? You met her the other day. She’s been working on this song.”

“Oh yeah, I know Paige,” Peter says. “We’re in a play together. She’s doing the music and some acting, I think.”

Balthazar blinks. “You got into a play?”

“Yeah, yeah, Faustus.” Peter grimaces. “Don’t tell the others, I don’t want them on my back about it…”

“I’m sure they’d support you.” At Peter’s expression, he decides changing the subject might be wise. “So, uh, what role did you get?”

“I’m the lead, dude.” Peter’s face bursts into a grin. “It’s… Well, ‘nice’ is the wrong word, probably. Our director’s - something. No words to describe him kinda person. But it’s been good.”

“That’s great,” Balthazar says honestly. “That’s really, really great. Congratulations, you deserve it.”

“Yeah, thanks.” The grin that spreads across his face is warm, and Balthazar’s insides feel warm too.

Balthazar works on the coffee in silence for a bit, but it’s one that they’re comfortable inhabiting. At the best of times, being in Peter’s presence doesn’t set his thoughts racing, and it doesn’t silence them. At the best of times being in his presence makes his thoughts feel like a kinder place to be.

“Oh yeah, you mentioned Rosa’s singing?” Balthazar looks over at Peter, who raises his eyebrows. “Didn’t peg her for much of a singer…”

“Yeah. But I think it’ll be good for her? For the both of us, really. I find that doing music with someone is one of the best ways to, like, understand them. ” On an impulse – and perhaps he really  _ is _ in a good mood – he says, “You should come. If you’re not busy.”

“Oh.” Peter’s face brightens. “Oh! Yeah, sure, bro, I’d love to.”

Balthazar thinks, suddenly, of the day before, when he’d dismissed the idea of asking Peter to help because he would have been too busy. And then he thinks of the time when Peter said “I’d make time for you,” and he decides these are probably things he shouldn’t think about anymore.

“It’s at Boyet’s.” He hesitates. Freddie doesn’t know; there’s no way she can. It’s safe. And, anyway, hasn’t he been looking for ways to hang out with the rest of the flat? “You should tell Ben and Freds too.”

“Yes,” Peter says, pumping his fist in the air. “Flat team supporting Balthy’s music. Hell yes.”

Balthazar laughs as he pours the coffee. “Fuck yes.”

“Forever and always.”

He reaches out and offers a mug to Peter. “I never doubted you for a second.”

Peter grins as he takes the mug, his fingers brushing lightly over Balthazar’s, and if he didn’t know any better it might take his breath away. “Good.”

He doesn’t quite know what makes him say what he says next. Maybe he can attribute that to a good mood too, or the way their silence feels now, right again. Maybe he just doesn’t have a real excuse. Either way, he can’t find it in himself to care that much.

“I, uh, I actually have a song that I’ve been working on myself, you know, just as something to do in my downtime?” Balthazar says. “But I think it works better as a duet. Do you think you could help me out with it?”

Peter’s eyes widen - with surprise or excitement or some combination of both, Balthazar can’t tell - and he nods. “That would be supremely cool. Me, helping out the great Balthazar Jones on a song. Good enough to put on my resume, that is.”

“Oh, so you’re just agreeing so you can use me,” Balthazar says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“What? Of course n - “ Peter opens his mouth, then shuts it. “You’re just kidding, aren’t you.”

Balthazar laughs. “Can’t make jokes anymore?”

Peter’s face softens, and Balthazar doesn’t wonder why. “Of course you can.” He clears his throat, then, and glances at the clock above the stove. “Should probably get back to studying.”

Peter, actually making the time in full daylight to study? Incredible. “Sure,” Balthazar says. “Good luck on everything.”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. “See you tonight.”

He realizes, then, as Peter leaves the kitchen, that it’s the first conversation they’ve had in days. Or, more precisely, it’s their first  _ real _ conversation, the first time they talked to each other that felt like - well, for lack of a better word, that felt like  _ them _ , in a while. He doesn’t know how to feel about that revelation, but he does know he feels almost peaceful right now, his insides still as silence, and that’s probably what matters the most.

The rest of the afternoon goes by pleasantly. His thoughts are uncluttered, which makes his work go by more quickly. By the time Rosa shows up at his flat, he’s feeling pretty good – happy, even. Rosa offers a cautious smile, her hands digging into the pockets of her coat, and it occurs to him for the first time that she might be nervous about what they’re about to do.

“If it helps tonight,” he says, “close your eyes, and just focus on the music.”

“Easy for you to say,” she answers. But she tucks a curl of hair behind her ear, and she doesn’t refuse his advice.

They meet with Paige about an hour before the gig, and the rehearsal goes pretty well. There’s not enough time to run through the whole song, but the harmonies only come in at certain points of the song, and Rosa gets them almost perfectly the first time they practice.

“Balthazar was right,” Paige says approvingly. “You are good.”

“Balthazar said I was good?” Rosa said, shooting him a look.

“No, not in those words,” Paige says, laughing abashedly. “But I could tell that’s what he meant.”

“Right,” Rosa says; when she looks at him again, her expression is inscrutable.

They don’t have much time to talk before the next gig. They have to walk to Boyet’s, for one, and Paige spends the whole time fussing over chords and words, fretting that she doesn’t have them entirely right. Chelsey greets them at Boyet’s, bursting with enough chatter and giggles to keep them all distracted. “Princess Rosa,” she says with a slight bow and a wide grin. “Your brother is  _ amazing _ . We positively adore him. You’re really quite lucky.”

“Right,” Rosa says, looking back at Balthazar. He suspects there will be a lot of that this evening.

“And darling,” Chelsey says, “don’t forget.”

“Don’t forget what, babe?” Paige says, turning to her with a fond smile.

“This.” Chelsey takes hold of her hand and kisses her on the lips, and Paige smiles through it all.

“Isn’t she a dryad?” Rosa murmurs to Balthazar.

“Yes.”

“But Paige is human?...”

“They’re happy,” Balthazar answers simply.

“Ah,” Rosa says.

“All right, kill ‘em,” Chelsey says when she pulls away, squeezing Paige’s hand one last time. That motion, oddly, more so than their kiss, causes a sudden, inexplicable wave of wistfulness to wash over him, vague as an old memory.

But he doesn’t have time to wonder too much about why he feels that way, because now they’re up, and he’s walking on stage, and there are people and lights and the anticipation of the performance that is about to happen, and somewhere out there is Peter and Freddie and Ben and people he cares about, and he doesn’t have room in his thoughts to think about anything else.

“I’m Paige Moth, and I’ll be performing a number called Cloud Control for you all,” Paige says into the microphone. “Accompanying me tonight are Balthazar and Rosa Jones. So, uh, here goes...”

Balthazar plays the first chords, and with a motion of his fingertips anything that exists beyond that stage and that point in time melts away.

“It’s a challenge, waking up to see the skies as grey as your mind…”

It feels like it’s been too long since he’s last played in front of a crowd, the quiet energy of their attention keeping his heartbeat steady, his fingers confident against his guitar strings. It feels like he’s right where he belongs.

He glances over at Rosa some time in the middle of it all, and her face is strange. Not in a bad way; her eyes are closed, and she sways back and forth to the music, lost in the words she sings. She seems peaceful, even. It’s only strange because he’s never seen it before.

After it’s done, they get off the stage, and Chelsey greets them with enthusiasm.

“That was so, so lovely, babe,” she says, kissing Paige on the cheek. “And Balthazar! Your guitar playing! Oh my gosh, with Rosa’s harmonies, that was really amazing, I  _ know _ everyone loved it…”

After a while, Balthazar and Rosa drift away, giving Paige and Chelsey some time to themselves. They order coffee from Kit at the counter – “singing runs in the family,” he says to Rosa, and she answers with a faraway smile – and sit down near the back to let the music of the rest of the night wash over them.

Peter and Freddie and Ben find them. “Thanks for coming,” Balthazar greets, grinning up at them.

“That was so good,” Freddie says, her eyes wide. “Man, you should have invited us to a gig earlier, Balth.”

He smiles hesitantly. “Well, better late than never, yeah?”

“It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve heard your angelic voice,” Ben says, wiping an imaginary tear from his eyes. “Oh, and, uh, you weren’t so bad, Rosa. I guess.”

“I’m so glad you thought so, your opinion is  _ so _ validating,” Rosa answers automatically in a monotone. Ben makes a face at her.

“You guys slayed,” Peter says. His smile seems a bit tilted, but Balthazar is determined not to think about his smiles more than he has to.

“Thanks, mullet boy,” Rosa says, her lips curling into a smirk.

Peter groans. “That was  _ one time _ …”

“ _ Mullet _ boy?” Ben says incredulously.

“It’s nothing,” Peter says quickly, then turns back to Balthazar. “Seriously. Good job, bro.”

“No, but actually, though, when Paige - that’s her name, right? - sings there’s just - “ Freddie gestures vaguely and widely. “This  _ feeling _ \- I don’t know how to say it - “

“Like your thoughts kinda just go, whoosh,” Ben supplies helpfully.

“It calms you, doesn’t it?” Peter nods. “Her music has that effect in general.”

“Wait, how do you know about her music?” Freddie says, squinting at him suspiciously.

Peter glances at Balthazar. Almost imperceptibly - to everyone, he knows, but Peter himself - Balthazar lets the corner of his mouth lift up into an encouraging smile. Peter shrugs at him, the slightest lift of the shoulders, and says, “I’m doing a play with her. Faustus?”

Ben’s face changes dramatically into shock. “Peter Adrian Donaldson! You’re doing  _ Marlowe _ and you had the audacity to  _ not tell me _ ?”

Peter winces at the sudden increase in volume of Ben’s voice. “Yeah, well.”

“That’s great, Peter,” Freddie says, cautious but honest. “Congratulations on the part.”

Peter rubs at the back of his neck, and though he doesn’t exactly smile Balthazar can tell he’s relieved.

“Make sure it’s on the calendar, though,” Freddie adds, poking him in the side. “I’m watching you like a hawk.”

“All right, okay, jesus,” Peter says, holding up his hands, but he’s laughing, and the sound of it is enough to make Balthazar feel that much more at ease.

“Anyway,” Freddie says, glancing at her watch, “I’ve got an essay due in the morning I really need to look at, so…”

“Yeah, let’s head on out,” Ben agrees. “So. Much. Latin.”

They turn and head for the door, but midstep Peter spins back around.

“You staying here?” Peter says, lifting his eyebrows in question.

“I reckon,” Balthazar answers. “I want to see the other acts. And anyway, got to catch up with the big sis whenever I can, yeah?” He nudges Rosa’s arm at this, and though the look she shoots him is downright poisonous he can’t help but smile.

“That’s pretty important.” Peter shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’ll see you, then.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Balthazar agrees. “Let’s work on that song I told you about this weekend.”

“Yeah.” Peter flashes a quick, but genuine smile at him. “Let’s do that.” And, shooting them one last glance, he leaves.

Balthazar lets himself enjoy the silence for a bit, and he can tell Rosa is doing the same. It’s been a good night. He hadn’t realized how sorely he needed one of those until he actually got one.

“That wasn’t horrible, was it?” Balthazar says during a set change.

“No.” Rosa doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t frown, either; she just looks thoughtful. “It was… different from what I expected.”

“Oh.” He hazards a glance at her. “How so?”

“Well, I guess it was – almost freeing.”

“Mm.” Balthazar doesn’t have an answer to that. He doesn’t have the words for what music makes him feel.

Rosa shakes her head, as if clearing her thoughts. “That girl. Paige. You said she’s a witch. She’s an empath, isn’t she?”

“Mhm.”

“Right.” She looks over at him. “And that song, those words…”

“Yeah?”

“No, never mind.”

They settle into silence for a few moments. His coffee has cooled down to a perfect temperature, and is pleasantly warm on his tongue.

“I think I get it,” she says, slowly.

Balthazar doesn’t have anything to say to that, either.

“Well. It’s nice to spend some time with you, anyway.” She gets up from her seat. “I should be getting back to the apartment. I’m looking forward to this weekend, Balthazar.”

It doesn’t occur to him until after she walks away that that’s the closest he’s ever heard her come to saying  _ Thank you _ .

  
  


_ Balthazar is thirteen years old and only just adjusting to the human realm when he meets Pedro Donaldson for the first time. He doesn’t know that’s his name, then, won’t for a little while longer. When they are both thirteen years old, they do not know each other, and Pedro is just the boy in a couple of his classes who always does his homework and never talks back to the teacher. _

_ It’s better, anyway, to focus on translating his theory lessons on humanity from the elven realms to practical living before focusing on making friends. Humans tend to react strangely to his refusal to eat any animal derivatives, or the way he frowns at some of their slang or historical inaccuracies. No one told him that it would be so difficult to integrate into their world, not even Rosa. _

_ She’d only shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, Balth,” she’d said. “It’s really just something you have to learn for yourself.” _

_ So, Balthazar is on his own, really. Rosa had promised to check up on him, but she’s on an assignment in Italy, somewhere, and not likely to return for months. Balthazar has to make do. _

_ He keeps to himself in the hallways and holds his books close to his chest, the pages digging into his skin, whispering of mourning dryads and sharp axes and cruel, cruel humans. Most of the books here do, some faint and old, some new and aching. Balthazar presses his lips together and tries not to listen, tries not to let them influence the way he treats the humans. He’ll be here for at least five years, after all; it’s best he not kick up a fuss so early on. _

_ That’s what a king would do, isn’t it? That’s what a crown prince should be doing. _

_ He meets Peter Donaldson, who will years later be called Pedro Donaldson and be one of his best friends, and then Peter Donaldson again and be the human he is in love with, on a cloudy day in the middle of August. It’s an accident, really; a step out of place, a glance in the wrong direction at the wrong moment, a collision. _

_ “Oh my god, bro,” the blonde says, helping Balthazar with his mass of books. “I’m so sorry.” _

_ “Nah, it’s fine,” Balthazar replies. He takes his last book and stands. “Sort of my fault.” _

_ The boy grins, and it’s sort of blinding—then again, all human’s smiles are, unused to them as Balthazar is. “Really, sorry. Peter Donaldson, by the way.” _

_ His companion nudges him. “Come on, man,” he murmurs. “We’re going to be late.” _

_ Peter shrugs apologetically. “You know Mr Lawrence—total elf. Most emotionless human I have ever met.” _

_ Balthazar forces his lips into something resembling a smile. “Yeah, yeah, no problem.” _

_ It’s not the first time he’s heard his kind or other kinds used as a joke or insult. It’s not the first time it’s hurt. That doesn’t mean it hurts any less, here in the early days of his immersion. _

_ Peter moves past him, ever present grin still fixed on his face. Does it hurt for humans, to smile so much? Do the emotions they spend and give so freely take a toll on them? _

_ The next morning, Balthazar arrives at class early, as he always does, and Peter and his friend are already sitting at their desks, sniggering at the board. As Balthazar makes his way to his own, he takes it in, in all it’s, well— _

_ Someone has written the entirety of what seems to be Marlowe’s  _ **_Must Have Wanton Poets,_ ** _ according to the title, on the whiteboard, complete with very colourful commentary. That won’t go over well with Mr Lawrence. _

_ Balthazar opens one of his books, the pages rustling and screaming quietly, and pretends he doesn’t notice, not even when other students start filing in, giggling. _

_ “Oh my god,” says one of them. “Was that Ben?” _

_ The boy next to Peter—Ben, apparently—shrugs. “Who’s to say, really? For all we know it could be a mischievous pixie.” _

_ Balthazar rereads the sentence he was on and tries to remember what the page had said. _

_ Mr Lawrence arrives then, not even looking at the board, and surveys the giggling hoard of students under his care. “In your seats,” he sighs. _

_ “Elf,” someone whispers, to a slew of smothered laughter. Balthazar doesn’t flinch. _

_ “Alright,” Mr Lawrence says, ignoring it. “Please keep silent while I call the roll. Ari—Rosalind, what are you looking at?” _

_ “Nothing, Mr Lawrence,” the girl replies quickly. _

_ Mr Lawrence looks behind him anyway, and at last catches sight of the board. “Really?” he asks. He picks up the eraser, and attempts to scrub the words off the board. He starts with the commentary. _

**_Fucking beautiful_ ** _ does not budge. _

_ Mr Lawrence sighs. “Really?” he asks again, and turns back to the class. “Does anyone have a confession to make?” He seems to be staring at Ben, who stiffens and shrugs. Out of the corner of his eye, Balthazar sees Peter blanch. _

_ No one speaks. _

_ Shaking his head, Mr Lawrence puts the marker down. “If the culprit would like to come to me at lunch, I’ll keep your privacy. Now, the roll.” _

_ After class, Balthazar passes Peter and Ben in the hallway. _

_ “—my god,” he catches Ben say. “That was terrifying. He didn’t even blink!” _

_ “Are you going to him at lunch?” _

_ “Hell no. He’ll figure it out anyway—“ _

_ Balthazar thinks of the fear on Pedro’s face when Mr Lawrence had singled him out, the easy way he’d helped him the day before. He thinks,  _ **_maybe this is what it means to be human_ ** _ , and lets the thought put down roots in his heart and mind. _

_ He goes to Mr Lawrence at lunch and says, “I just really like Marlowe,” and Mr Lawrence gives him a disbelieving look and some cleaning solution. _

**_This is what it means to be human_ ** _ , he thinks, and decides  _ **_I think I want to be human_ ** _. If this is the beauty in humanity, then surely—surely it will be alright here, with their unwitting insults and sobbing pages and strange looks. _

_ Maybe Balthazar will find his place. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday to Mariam (storiesfromtheden) and Crystal (niuniunjiaojiao) <3
> 
> And [here is a beautiful edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/138365472215/if-this-is-the-beauty-in-humanity-then) for this chapter by [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: One of us (we’ll leave you to figure out who) watched Dead Poets Society while writing their scene. We are not responsible for the consequences of this action.

Balthazar’s been working on a song himself. That much of what he told Peter is true.

What he doesn’t say is how easy the words came to him when he first put pen to paper, how he barely even had to think about writing those words, and yet when he realized what they were, it felt more like he was fighting a losing battle than winning it. What he doesn’t say is that, all things considered, it isn’t a song that should exist, and the feelings behind it are feelings he’s been told his whole life he shouldn’t have. What he doesn’t say is all the hours he spent not thinking about any of that, not regretting any of it, almost wanting to feel guilty for not feeling guilty, his thoughts chasing each other around in endless circles.

Peter doesn’t need to know a single thing about what’s behind this song. Balthazar could write dozens of songs about all the things Peter never needs to know.

A knock on his bedroom door jars Balthazar from his thoughts. He sits down on his bed, notebook in his hand, and calls, “Come on in.”

Peter pops his head in the room. “So are we doing this now, or…?”

“Yeah, man.” Balthazar smiles briefly at him. “I’m going out in a bit with Rosa to Astronomy Club, but I got all my assignments done early, so it’s now or never, I guess?”

“Oh man, make sure you have that on the  _ calendar,  _ we don’t want Freddie flipping her shit again, do we?” Peter jumps onto Balthazar’s bed, his arms outstretched. “You lucky bastard, though. I have an essay due Monday I haven’t even started yet. Three thousand words, and it promises to be a real pain in the ass.”

“What are you doing here, then?” Balthazar pushes at Peter’s leg playfully with his foot. “I don’t want to be responsible for your pain happening at, like, two in the morning.”

“But I’d so much rather be here with you,” Peter says, propping his head up on his arm. “Literally a thousand times better. Can’t begrudge me for that, can you?”

Balthazar’s heart beats steadily in his chest. Context is everything. “I can’t believe this,” he says, looking down at the words he’d written on the page. “I’ve been forced into becoming an accomplice in your procrastination.”

“I didn’t force you to do anything,” Peter teases. “You asked, actually.”

“Damn, got me there.” Balthazar clears his throat. “So about this song, I figure we can go over it for a bit and then try for the whole thing a couple times? I mostly just want to solidify the melodic line, make sure the harmonies sound as good as they do in my head, that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, sure,” Peter says, nodding enthusiastically. “Let’s do it, bro.”

“Right.” Balthazar pulls his guitar into his lap, an instinctual motion. “So…”

Peter learns the lyrics quickly, which is good because now that there’s someone else besides him reading those words Balthazar doesn’t really want to think too hard about them. If he does, he knows he’ll start thinking about what Peter thinks about them, and then he’ll think too much about it in general, and thinking too much is never a good place to be in his head.

“I dig this,” Peter says, gesturing at the page. “These words have a good rhythm to them. I especially like this call-and-answer bit, that’s pretty neat.”

“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees. “It sort of relies on the two people singing to have a good rapport already, don’t you think? To get the timing just right?”

“I mean, they just need to click well, yeah? Doesn’t necessarily have to be people who know each other well.” Peter shrugs. “Like in the song. You’ve only just met this other person, but something kind of clicks, and you just… want to know them better. You want to be with them for a little while, no matter how short it actually is, because you know it’ll still matter. And you don’t really need much more than that.”

Balthazar looks away. “Right.”

“I mean – “ Peter laughs softly to himself. “We know each other, obviously. But we also just - kind of  _ click _ . So it ends up working really well.”

Balthazar is suddenly, scarily tempted to ask whether they’re still talking about the song. Maybe he’d even be able to spin it as a joke. But when it comes to matters involving Peter Donaldson, Balthazar can’t fathom being anything but serious.

“There might be a time in the future where we don’t click, though,” Balthazar says, slowly. “It’s not just something we can ignore, or rely on. When thinking about performing the song, I mean.”

“Right.” Peter’s smile falters, and Balthazar’s heart, much to his annoyance, skips a beat. “But – doesn’t how we sing it now matter too?”

“I guess.” Balthazar shrugs, pretending his pulse isn’t pounding in his veins. “Do you want to try for this, then?”

“Yeah.” Peter runs a hand through his hair. “Let’s do it.”

It seems for a horrifying moment that the sudden tension Balthazar feels deep in his chest might make him mess up on the chords, but he gets them right on the first try, and when he gets into the groove of it, the world just seems to melt away effortlessly, as it always does. He strums his guitar the way he knows how, and he can breathe a little easier.

“Baby in blue, I saw you…”

It’s good that he let Peter take the first verse, he thinks. His voice is untrained, but it sounds good, better than Balthazar remembered. He puts an energy into the words that makes each one feel like they actually mean something.

Balthazar glances over at him, and their eyes meet. Peter’s face breaks into a grin, slow and lazy and beautiful; Balthazar cannot bear to look away.

“If I leave, will you be okay?” Peter sings, raising his eyebrows questioningly, and Balthazar grins back.

When come to life, the song - playing it, singing it - feels as easy as just being. Peter nods along with a look of concentration on his face, his foot tapping on the floor, and they’re perfectly in sync, the rhythms of their voices and their breaths lined up without needing to say a word, the way it is when they’re at their very best together. When they look at each other, when their glances connect over the words, smiles playing on their lips like inside jokes, it’s almost electric. It’s almost good. He can almost lose himself in this, the music, the words, until Peter sings, “I can stay,” and he thinks,  _ I can’t _ , and something inside him grows cold and still.

But his part is coming up next, and it’s going so well, he can’t ruin it now. He’s a performer; he knows how to pretend when he has to. “If I took you by the hand, would you mind?” he sings, and pretends it’s not a question that was always meant for Peter. “I’m not in a rush, so we can take our time,” he sings, and pretends it’s not a lie, pretends that he didn’t write the whole song as a dressed up lie to himself. The song moves along faster than he anticipated. His pulse sears his veins.

Peter is still smiling, and it’s still the most beautiful thing Balthazar’s ever seen. Peter doesn’t know. Peter never will. He doesn’t  _ want _ Peter to know. It hurts enough, on his own.

“’Cause I don’t wanna go, I wanna stay…”

And the thing is, he doesn’t know if that’s true anymore. He doesn’t know if it should be, or shouldn’t.

He should have thought about it sooner. But all this – his schoolwork, his music, Peter – has been such an easy way to forget he has to think about it. And now everything’s crashing down on him like a wave that drowns, and he doesn’t know what to feel, only that he shouldn’t.

Because he’s in love with Peter. He can admit that much to himself, he’s known it for so long. And if he goes, he’ll lose that; he’ll lose  _ him _ .

But if he stays, he’ll lose him too. If not today, then someday. For humans, there is always a someday.

“‘Cause if I’m home or with you, it’s the same.”

He hates that he can’t make himself feel any less. He should. They always told him he should, that in fact, being an elf - being what he is, really - meant he could. But if he could, why does singing those words send flames and ice through his veins all at once?

“Don’t tell me that you’re fine,” but Peter’s looking at him with a smile in his eyes, and Balthazar knows he doesn’t believe it; he knows he thinks everything is fine, even as nothing really is.

“I know that look in your eyes,” and he does, he knows the way Peter is staring at him now intimately, could recall that face and the brightness in his gaze in his very dreams, but one day he won’t be able to, one day the memory of it will be so worn by time it won’t exist anymore, and it might be far away for Peter but for him, infinity will stretch on and on beyond that day, the day that will come far too soon no matter what happens between now and then, and the thought terrifies him more than he knew anything ever could.

“Let me distract you for a little while,” and he can’t.

“Let’s forget time,” and he can’t.

“I can take you away,” and he can’t.

“We can forget this place,” and they can’t.

“Don’t let this day I met you go to waste,” and Balthazar wishes more than anything he didn’t have to.

“I can stay… I can stay.”

The last note lingers in the air, their voices blurring together in a way that makes his thoughts feel still, and Balthazar can’t pretend anymore that this - their voices shouldn’t blur together; it would be easier if they didn’t, it would be easier if things between them  _ weren’t _ so easy - doesn’t hurt so much he can hardly breathe.

“Nice,” Balthazar says, setting his guitar aside, not daring to hazard a glance at Peter, because it’s the simplest thing to say, and because Peter was good. He was good, he is good, and he doesn’t deserve all the thoughts and feelings Balthazar has about him. Peter deserves better.

“I think I get it.”

He looks up, an instinct; and Peter meets his eyes, and that makes him feel still, too.

“What?”

“You know that thing you said? About doing music with other people?”

“Yeah?” He can’t tell if his voice shakes. He feels like it should.

“I think…” Peter looks down, abashed, glances back up again. “I think I understand better, now.”

“Understand what?” His pulse roars in his ears.

“You,” Peter says, soft and gentle, and he reaches for Balthazar’s hand, and his eyes are so hopeful, so full of affection, and that’s when Balthazar realizes, the epiphany freezing his breath in his lungs, that Peter thinks he gets it, he thinks he knows what’s happening between them. But he doesn’t, he can’t, he thinks that this is a moment that’s brought them closer together when really they’ve never been more far apart, and the idea that Peter could ever begin to get it is so wrong that Balthazar can’t bear it. Peter’s fingers burn against his palm.

“No, you don’t,” Balthazar says, pulling his hand away. “You don’t understand at all.”

Peter’s smile melts into a frown.

“Balthazar, what – ”

“I just – I – ”

“Balthazar, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Peter says, “I just wanted to – ”

“It doesn’t matter, Pete.”

_ None of it matters _ , he doesn’t say. He knows Peter can hear that in his words, from the way he falls quiet.

“I have to go now.” Balthazar stands up. “With Rosa.”

“Wait, Balthazar - “

Peter’s hand wraps around his wrist, and when he looks back at him, there’s a desperation in his eyes that makes all of Balthazar’s heart ache.

“If I don’t understand,” Peter says, pleads, “then help me to.”

But Peter will never be able to understand, and it is better for them both if it stays that way - for his heart, really, and for Peter’s happiness. Above all, he must always remember that matters more than anything else. Though Balthazar doesn’t have any idea in the world what he should do - has he ever known? - he knows that much.

“I can’t,” Balthazar says, dropping the words like stones from his mouth.

And he pulls his arm from Peter’s grip - Peter’s arm falls limply to his side, but Balthazar’s turned too fast to see his face; he’s glad for it - and he leaves, before Peter can say anything, before Peter can make him stay, because he knows Peter can do that. That’s what makes it worse. If Balthazar let him, if he let his walls down for just a second, he could make him stay, when all he needs is to go.

But the thing is, he cannot begin to figure out if that’s what he needs, if it’s what he wants, if it’s what he has to do. When it comes to Peter, he’s never known. That’s the very worst part of it all.

  
  


Balthazar meets his sister and friends at the gathering, having wandered the town until it was close enough to sundown for people to begin congregating.

“Balthazar!” Chelsey greets, grinning. “How are you?”

“I’m doing alright,” he answers, to the raised eyebrows of both his sister and Paige. He shrugs.

“Well,” Rosa says after a moment of silence. “I noticed some old faces earlier, might head over to say hi.” She leaves with a forced half smile that tells Balthazar  _ exactly _ what she thinks of his lie and a quiet, “Come talk to me when you’re ready.”

Paige sighs. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks. Balthazar shakes his head, pressing his lips together. “Okay. Well, I’m here if you need me.”

“Yeah, of course.”

For a moment, he is tempted to simply hang back from the crowd, keep to the outskirts and blend in with the background as he has learnt to do from childhood. It’s easier to think like that, and this is something he really should be thinking about. The decision, that is, not the chaos that practicing the song with Peter devolved into. That, he cannot afford to meditate on, for if he does, he will remember the panic pulsing through him and the deep desire to  _ just stay there _ , and Peter’s hand and Peter’s soft smile and the confusion in Peter’s eyes and—

“Hey,” Kit interrupts, as if he can hear his thoughts. Honestly, Balthazar wouldn’t be surprised if he could. “Ready to brave the crowds?”

Balthazar forces a smile. “Yeah, why not?”

He stays with Kit as he stayed with Paige at the last gathering, but this time he recognises many of the faces he passes.

He wonders, briefly, how long it will take to forget them. How long it will take to forget anyone.

As the night grows on, everyone begins splitting off into smaller groups, and the tangible magic in the air becomes visible again. It’s wards, mostly, Balthazar knows, but there is a beauty in it that he rarely sees, these days.

He happens upon Rosa, chatting to another elf that must be Kel. The magic dances in her hair, down and around her face for once, and the smile playing on her lips is almost full and completely genuine.

“Balthazar,” she smiles. “This is Kel, the warrior I was telling you about.”

Kel nods in greeting. “Prince Balthazar.”

Balthazar nods back. “Settling into the human realms?” he asks.

“Well,” Kel grins. “I have been here for a good century and a half, so you would think so. I’ve had plenty of time to settle in, after all; haven’t served since the last dragon skirmish.”

Rosa hums in agreement. “Only for a little longer,” she says, and Balthazar looks down at his barely visible feet. He can feel her stare. “Balth…” she murmurs.

He shrugs, remembering Kel’s presence, his loyalties.

Kel clears his throat. “I’m going to go talk to the faery,” he says. “Ambassador Rosa, I’ll probably end up seeing you back at the flat.”

“Of course.”

The elven warrior walks off, and Rosa and Balthazar wait until he’s out of earshot to talk again.

“I’m not pressuring you into coming,” she says.

“I know you’re not.”

Rosa nods, the slight frown on her face illuminated in ethereal light.

“Really,” Balthazar says, because she is leaving soon, and he cannot afford to lose her on such a foul note. “I know.”

“Balthazar,” she sighs. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything. I just think you should know, where I’m going—I’m going to say goodbye to some people, those who have meant more to me than some. Whatever your decision, it might be best for you to begin to do the same.”

Balthazar focuses on his breathing and does not think of what it would be like to stay. He does not think of the hurt in Peter’s eyes as he drew away.

Rosa shakes her head. “It’s something to consider,” she says. “But Balthazar, please know that I just want what’s best for you and for the higher realms. I just want…” she trails off, lost for words. “I’m going to see what the rest of the magical community is like here. I’ll see you before I leave.”

“Yeah,” Balthazar murmurs to her retreating back, and he closes his eyes before the image blurs.

Kit, who had wandered off to talk to a witch about some sort of magical process, appears back and his side.

“You know why the fae left, don’t you?” he asks, and it would be out of the blue if it did not relate so much to his situation.

Balthazar swallows and shakes his head.

Kit huffs. “They didn’t teach you that before they decided to retreat?” he asks, a hint of bitterness clouding his curiosity. “ _ Man _ .”

“They did,” Balthazar answers, voice deceivingly steady. “But not… not all of it.”

“Ha,” says Kit, humourlessly. “All of the truth is a rather large feat to ask of a faery.”

Balthazar doesn’t answer.

“Well.” Kit clears his throat. “The fae were always closer to the humans. From the beginning, it was the fae playing with humanity, and humanity in turn twisting tales of untruth and glamour about our lesser misdeeds. It was a war of mischief and fear and dread, waged in the shadows and in the minds of the humans that we so often plagued. And then, bit by bit, the fae became fiercer, the humans more paranoid. That is when I left them—or they left me, depending on your hearing. All else is hearsay: a youngling kidnapped by humans, wings sliced off, magic repressed; humans disappearing in their homes, found days later with hearts beating but minds gone; fear in every heartbeat. And then, they left. We became a cautionary tale, or perhaps a bit of fun, told to the children to keep them out of the woods at night… as if the dryads did not cast their protection over the little ones in the first place.”

Balthazar just breathes for a moment, his own problems paling suddenly in comparison. “Oh,” he says.

Kit shrugs, face turned away from the elf.

“It was half a millennia ago,” he says. “And I hadn’t been close to any of them in a long while.”

“Does that make it hurt any less, then? The distance?”

Kit sighs. “I hate to do this,” he says, “but please, can we not?”

“I’m sorry,” Balthazar replies. “For reminding you. For forcing you to bring it up.”

The faery’s mouth curls up at the side, lazy. “No one’s ever forced me to do anything, man.”

_ Really? _ Balthazar wants to ask, suddenly curious.  _ Then where are your wings? What have you suffered through? _

Kit looks up at the sky again. “Well,” he sighs. “This is a rather more depressing gathering than most I’ve been to.”

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“Kinda makes you wish you were human.”

Balthazar nods in agreement, lost in his own thoughts. It will hurt him either way, he knows, what he does now. If he stays or if he goes or if, as Rosa suggested, he begins to say goodbye in advance. To draw away before their time is up. It will hurt like his heart is being rent in every direction, immovable forces and unstoppable objects and him, right in the midst of it all.

But perhaps he can save the others pain.

He remembers the look of hope in Peter’s eyes, the startling drop into confusion made more painful by its contrast. He thinks of Freddie’s terrible movies and unsuspecting smiles, Ben’s overwhelming playfulness and quiet fears. He recalls Ursula’s smile and complete acceptance of his strange customs, Hero’s bright joy as she fumbled over his old ukulele, Beatrice’s not-so-subtle digs at those who thought he was an easy target in school.

He should go home so the others don’t worry about him. He should make amends with Peter. He should go back to pretending that nothing exists between them. He should go back to pretending that he is normal.

But perhaps he can make the slope a little more gradual, the descent a little slower, the contrast less harsh.

He stands and watches the stars with Kit until they disappear.

  
  


This time around, Balthazar has a whole host of people offering to walk him home.

Paige and Chelsey, their hands intertwined and their faces full of unbearable concern, he turns away first. “I know the way by now,” he says, forcing a smile. There’s no point in pretending – Paige’s glance at him is enough to convey that she sees right through him – but they know better not to push him when he needs to be left alone.

Kit is next, though he doesn’t ask out loud, only sends him a questioning look. “It’s fine,” Balthazar says. “I’ll be fine.” Kit doesn’t push it, just shrugs and walks away. He does not waste the time to look behind him, for which Balthazar is grateful.

Rosa, of course, is the hardest to refuse, if only because her company is the most tempting. She stares at him boldly and unashamedly, doesn’t ask if he’s all right, because she already knows what his answer would be to a question like that.

“You should go home and get some rest,” Balthazar says. “You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?”

“Tomorrow, if all goes well. I suppose the sooner I start finishing my business, the better.” Rosa purses her lips, and the crease between her brows deepens. “You should get some rest too, Balthazar. You look like you need it.”

“I will,” Balthazar lies. It feels like an instinct, by now, to make promises he can’t keep. “I’ll try to be up to see you off, but, uh, no guarantees.”

Rosa rolls her eyes. “Typical.” She reaches out, then, and squeezes him briefly on the shoulder. It’s affection he’s not used to from her, and the gesture makes his heart clench painfully. “Until next we meet, brother.”

“Yeah,” he says, and this time he can’t even make himself smile. “Until next time.”

The walk home is long and lonely. By design, of course, because Balthazar doesn’t know how to deal with the thought of having to attempt to explain himself to someone else, the words digging into his throat as they fight their way out of his lungs, their pity and sympathy so suffocating he might choke, and because the silence doesn’t swallow up his thoughts – the silence just leaves him alone.

Though maybe either way, it’s a useless effort on his part. He doesn’t know what’s safe to think about right now. Thinking about his music hurts. Thinking about going back to school hurts. Thinking about Peter hurts. Sometimes he thinks it would be easier not to think of anything at all.

He wonders what he’ll do when he gets home, if he’ll sink into bed and sleep through the day or if the thoughts in his head will eat him alive. The silence in his room, at this moment, is almost a welcoming thought.

When he gets to the stairs, he looks up at the flat for a long moment, squinting in the early morning light. Ben always used to say it was like living on the top of a mountain. Sometimes, some days, the mountain feels impossible to climb. He does it anyway, though, because he has no choice, not tonight; he has nowhere else to go.

It’ll be easy, once he actually gets there. All he has to do is walk to his room and shut the world out, if only for a little while.

When Balthazar gets into the living room, though, all of his hopes of having the silence to himself wither into nothing.

Peter is sitting on the couch, and before Balthazar can think of the implications of coming across Peter here in the early morning, can wonder things like  _ What is he doing here? _ and  _ Did he even get any sleep?  _ and  _ Why? _ , Peter’s head has snapped toward him.

_ I can’t do this _ , he thinks, because the last few days have already exhausted him so much his limbs feel like stone, and because he feels so heavy inside it hurts to breathe. It’s only when he sees Peter’s face change – collapse, really, he thinks hazily, hopeful desperation that falls into nothing – that he realizes he’s said those words aloud.

The moment passes by quickly, though, and Peter’s face hardens. “Please, Balthazar.” He straightens up, placing his hand on the space next to him. “Can we just – talk? Just for a bit. Please.”

Balthazar walks over, almost mechanically. He lets himself sink down next to Peter, their hips brushing, their arms pressing into each other. He hates the way the contact and the warmth makes his heartbeat speed up, hates it because it shouldn’t; he doesn’t deserve it.

There is silence, now, but it is not the silence that Balthazar desires. It’s not kind, and it doesn’t leave him alone. It is a silence that stills all the motion in his head, that fills the air with tension that smothers. It is silence that is louder than words.

“Balthazar…”

_ Why’d you leave? Why’d you go? Why did you leave, when you could have stayed? _

Balthazar knows Peter well enough, now, to know the questions he can’t ask.

“Balthazar, I’m sorry,” Peter says.

“For what?” Balthazar says, automatically. He feels numb inside, and cold.

“I didn’t…” Peter sighs, rubs at his eyes. “I didn’t mean to presume – you clearly – I’m just – I’m sorry.”

It dawns on Balthazar, then, that of all the things Peter could feel about this – pain, annoyance, anger, even – of all the things he could think, Peter believes all of this is his fault. It’s a twist of cold irony that digs deep into his heart, that he can’t quite comprehend even as he knows it’s the truest thing he could ever know about Peter.

“I just – I thought we were on the same page, and I thought you  _ wanted _ that, but – “ Peter breaks off again, frustrated, and Balthazar hates that he doesn’t know how to find the words to speak to him. It shouldn’t be that way. It should be the easiest damn thing in the world.

But then he thinks that would just make everything else harder, and he hates that thought even more.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says again, lamely. “That’s all I wanted to say. You – our friendsh – you’re really important to me. I don’t want you to think otherwise, okay? So I’m sorry. Just – please don’t push me away.”

“Peter,” Balthazar says, “you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

Peter looks sharply over at him. “What are you talking about?”

But how on earth can Balthazar ever find the words to explain? How can Balthazar explain an impossible choice, a decision between one impossible life and another? How can he explain that they can never be on the same page, not when Peter refuses to believe in magic, not when he’s deliberately rejected the existence of everything Balthazar has ever known because otherwise it just hurts too much? How could he possibly tell Peter that what he decided was best for himself wounds Balthazar every day they live together, paper cuts that bleed as each day bleeds past them, and sometimes he doesn’t even know if he disagrees with Peter or not? Would Peter be able to wrap his head around the unchangeable infinity of Balthazar’s life? He’d even have to break the rules, and as insignificant as that thought seems compared to everything else that’s happened, right now it just seems like another reason why this is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.

“I’m sorry.” Balthazar sucks in a breath, another. It stings. “For making you think you were the one to blame for this. You said it yourself, didn’t you? I’m the one who always pushes you away.” It sounds so much like  _ It’s not you, it’s me _ Balthazar almost wants to laugh, if it were funny.

“Balthazar, don’t do this,” Peter says. “Don’t take this all on yourself.”

“If I’m not allowed to do it,” Balthazar says, “then you can’t, either.”

He looks over at Peter. He had meant to glance, to allow himself the briefest of moments of peace, but Peter is looking at him, too, and it’s a stare so blazing, so magnetic, he can’t pull himself away.

“Just – “ Peter starts and stops again, and his breaths come out heavily, weighed down with the fragility of the air between them. “Just tell me what you want, Balth. Just tell me so I can stop – I want to understand, okay? And if you want me to I’ll just – back off forever. Just – ”

But Peter can’t promise him forever, and it hurts, it hurts to know forever means something entirely different to the both of them.

“I’d never ask that of you,” Balthazar says, before he can stop himself.

Peter halts mid-speech, eyes widening. His mouth parts.

“Do you…” he swallows. “Do you mean that?”

And, for the briefest of moments, Balthazar hates that he ever gave Peter a reason to doubt him.

“Yeah,” he says, because in that moment, in that place, wherever they are, it’s true.

They don’t say anything for a moment; words will break it, and Balthazar doesn’t want to know what all the moments outside of this one are like. In this moment, he knows exactly what Peter is thinking and feeling, because he feels it too.

“Are you…” Peter breathes.

He nods, and before Balthazar can even process what he’s just done, Peter is leaning in, and without thinking Balthazar’s leaning in too, and the whole wide world is frozen.

Their lips meet somewhere in the middle, a sweet, hesitant touch that makes his heart ache. Everything inside him goes still, and silent, and it’s the kind of silence he’s always loved.

He can feel a hand reaching for his own, tangling their fingers together. The touch, more than anything else, makes his heart feel bursting with a different kind of silence, because that’s just another promise he can’t keep either, and now that he’s had the thought he can’t think of anything else. He is so tired of breaking his promises to Peter; he can’t make any more.

He makes himself pull away, but then Peter is following, and he can’t bear the feeling of the space they’ve built between them sliding away so easily. Peter leans his forehead against his, and Balthazar lets him, because after this is gone, things will never be the same again, and he’s always wished more than anything – as much as he knows he can’t have it – for things not to change.

“Balth, don’t do this,” Peter says against his lips, and his voice sounds like a broken mirror, like shattered glass, like the whole wide world is breaking apart. “Not again.”

Balthazar squeezes his eyes shut. He can feel Peter’s breathes against his skin, fast and staccato, a rhythm he wishes he didn’t know as well as his own heartbeat. “What do you mean, not again?”

His feigned ignorance falls flat, even to his own ears. He knows Peter’s right. It’s always Balthazar who does this.

“You know what I mean.”

And Peter’s right about that, too, because hearing those words conjures up images of all the things he’s done to the both of them, all the times he tried to protect himself and ended up just making it so much worse – his last summer festival, the night they went to town, and now. He’s doing it right now, and he doesn’t know how to stop.

“I have to,” he says. He does not dare to open his eyes.

This time, Peter doesn’t ask why.

“I can’t do this anymore, Pete,” Balthazar says.

“Do what?” Peter squeezes his hand around Balthazar’s, and that is the breaking point; that is the moment when everything becomes far too much.

“I can’t talk to you anymore.” His own words almost suffocate him, but he presses forward, because he has to, and  _ having to _ has always been more important than  _ wanting to _ . “It’s too hard.”

“Balthazar.” He sounds so utterly wretched everything inside Balthazar feels like it’s being wrenched apart.

“I told you you’re not the only person who has anything to be sorry for,” Balthazar says. He means the words as blows, and when he opens his eyes and sees Peter’s face he knows it worked. But who were they really meant to wound?

He pulls his hand from Peter’s grasp, and he goes to his room. Peter doesn’t follow, or yell after him. It’s better that way.

Even as he stands in the middle of his room, fists pressed into his eyelids with the image of Peter’s broken face burned into the walls of his mind, he knows it’s better this way.

  
  


_ Balthazar leaves the elven realms with only his phone and the clothes he’d brought with him. All his instruments are at Ursula’s house, safe from his parents’ prying eyes and heavy disappointment. That’s all he needs, really—his clothes, his phone, and his instruments. A place to stay would be great, too; he can’t very well sneak back into the elven realms whenever he needs to sleep and be safe from the consequences. _

_ Pedro would let him stay, if he asked, but his family needs the time and the space to work out their issues. He doesn’t need to ruin another family relationship; surely his own is enough. _

_ Ursula’s out, too. She’d love to have him stay, she tells Balthazar, but her parents would never let him. They don’t like having others around the house for long periods of time, especially not strange ones like him who never brings parents to school interviews or hosts sleepovers or parties at his own house. _

_ Hero’s mums have suddenly gone on the defensive with any potential romantic partners, and no one but family is allowed to stay over for more than a few hours at a time. Bea chafes under the rule, but she can go to her boyfriend’s house, anyway. She’s not the one most likely to suffer from it. _

_ That leaves Ben, whom Balthazar has never really been close to. He’s hung out with him, sure, but never just the two of them. Balthazar isn’t even sure he knows his cat’s name. _

_ “Yeah, no problem at all,” Ben assures him, when he calls to ask. “How long for?” _

_ Balthazar presses his lips together, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “Some stuff happened, with my family, and…” _

_ Ben goes quiet for a moment. “Of course, man,” he says, then brightens. “Hey, I’ll finally get you to watch the Marlowe box set I got for my birthday!” _

_ Balthazar is suddenly breathlessly grateful that, despite his exuberant, outgoing nature, he at least knows how to deal with people. “Sounds great, yeah.” _

_ He hangs up a little while after that and shifts his bag. Ben’s probably the best option for this, anyway. He won’t ask too many questions, and he’ll talk enough to distract Balthazar from his own issues. _

_ His phone rings again. Pedro. Balthazar hesitates for just a moment before picking it up. _

_ “Hey,” he answers. “I was just about to text you.” _

_ “Yeah, yeah, Ben told me you were back in town, bro.” Balthazar wonders if he’s imagining the hidden implication, the quiet why didn’t you? He is, surely. _

_ “Yeah, I’m, um…” he trails off, trying to find a way to tell Pedro something close to the truth without actually compromising the identity of every magical being in New Zealand. “I had a falling out with my family, so I’m just going to stay with Ben for a bit.” _

_ “Oh.” He can hear Pedro shifting on the other end of the line. “You know you could have asked me, right?” _

_ “Ben has an extra room,” he answers, as if that’s enough. There are too many reasons not to stay at Pedro’s right now—his family’s knowledge of his feelings, Pedro’s own family problems, Pedro’s current rocky relationship with magic—it just wouldn’t work. _

_ “That’s cool, bro,” Pedro says, after a moment of silence. “Hey, uh, you want to hang out tomorrow? Go chill in the park or something?” _

_ “Sure,” Balthazar answers, and he’d be fine if he hadn’t just left his family, if he hadn’t left things in such an awkward place when he left, if he wasn’t so terrible at actually dealing with the humans he’s grown to love so much. His chest constricts tightly. “Just like old times, yeah?” _

_ “Uh, yeah,” Pedro answers quietly, and he almost sounds disappointed. “Just like old times. See you then?” _

_ “See you then.” _

_ Pedro hangs up, and Balthazar drops the phone into his pocket like it burns him. It wasn’t that he believed he could just leave and come back and everything would be back to normal; he knew that the moment he left was the worst in terms of his relationship with Pedro. _

_ That didn’t stop Balthazar’s heart from aching, from feeling as though it may beat out of his chest just from that short conversation with him. _

_ Sighing, he shifts his bag again and heads to Ben’s house; there, at least, he can forget, for a little while. _

_ Ben greets him with a cup of tea and a smile that’s only half there, and Balthazar has never been a fan of tea, but it’s warm and a nice gesture, nonetheless. _

_ “You want to talk about it?” Ben asks, once they are safely inside. _

_ Balthazar shakes his head. “Not really,” he answers. _

_ Ben nods. “That’s okay. But anytime you want to, I’m here. Hey, we could talk in the bath! You know, my bathtub of emotion? It actually helps.” _

_ “Maybe, maybe.” Balthazar can’t help but smile, just a little. The idea of discussing his feelings in a bathtub is so far removed from all his issues in the elven realms that, for a moment so is he. _

_ “But, yeah,” Ben continues. “I talked to my parents, and they’re cool for you to stay until we go down to Wellington. Unless you want to go back to your family at any time, but—” _

_ “No, yeah, thanks,” Balthazar nods, taking a sip of his tea. “That would be—if it isn’t too much trouble, that would be great.” _

_ “No, not at all. Anyway, my parents are at work, but you’ll meet them tonight, I guess.” Ben frowns. “Oh, yeah, the spare room! I completely forgot. Follow me.” He starts up the stairs, grabbing Balthazar’s bag. “So, how are things going with Pedro?” _

_ Balthazar thinks back to the tangible almost of that conversation on the Dukes’ lawn, the missed gig, the stilted phone conversation a few hours earlier. “What do you mean?” he asks, half to save time. _

_ Ben turns around so abruptly he stumbles down a step. “Oh come on,” he says, once he’s regained his balance. “You  _ **_like like_ ** _ him. He  _ **_like likes_ ** _ you. The two of you need to admit that and  _ **_be happy_ ** _.” _

_ “How are things going with Beatrice?” Balthazar asks, not wanting to think about all the opportunities he’s missed with Pedro. After that conversation, after his abrupt departure, it’s unlikely he and Pedro will ever be as close as they had been before the mess of last year, let alone in any place that they could be together. _

_ Ben’s mouth tilts, a small, soft smile spreading over his  features. “Great,” he answers. “Um--really great, actually. I’ve liked her for the longest time, and now I get to be with her, like, all the time.” _

_ “I’m happy for you,” Balthazar answers genuinely, tamping down the spark of jealously threatening to light. There’s a million and one reasons it won’t work with Pedro, and all of them are his own fault. _

_ “You should be happy for yourself.” _

_ Balthazar swallows. “Can we please just-- not?” _

_ “ _ **_Balth_ ** _ ,” Ben groans, drawing out the nickname. “Fine, if you don’t want to talk about it. But, just be happy? We all just want you two to be happy.” _

_ This, Balthazar realises, is the difference between the human and elven realms. The only elf who had ever pleaded for his personal happiness is Rosa, and she’s probably the being that he’s closest to, or at least was. That someone he’s not even really close friends with—friends, sure, but not close, not like he and Pedro or he and Ursula—would open up his home and wish for Balthazar’s happiness? This is all the reasons he has to stay. _

_ “Thanks,” he says, realising too much time has passed since Ben’s statement. _

_ Ben grins and turns back up the stairs. “Of course. Okay, so there are so many series we’re going to watch. Oh my god, you haven’t watch Pacific Rim yet, have you? I wonder who you’d be drift compatible with? And we need to get you caught up on, like, all of Doctor Who.” _

_ Balthazar lets the words filter past him, their presence rather than content bringing a slight smile to his lips, relieving some of the pressure from his shoulders. For the first time, the ugly pressure on his lungs—fear and loss and pain and guilt and too much self-pity—begins to dissipate. _

_ His parents are wrong. His sister is wrong. This—here with humans who don’t care how much love they give away or how obviously they show it—is where he belongs. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A [lovely edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142529723657) by the incomparable [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	10. Chapter 10

Some time later that day, a knock sounds against the front door, so distinctive in its sharpness and rhythm it can only belong to Rosa. Balthazar makes his way to the front when he hears it. It’s the first time he’s left his room since the morning, and when he passes Peter’s door he doesn’t have to look to know it’ll be closed.

His sister stands in the doorway with a hand on her hip, the look she shoots him when he opens the door familiar in its cool appraisal. But he’s not in the mood to be examined today. He pulls his sleeves over his hands and avoids her gaze.

“Should I ask?” Rosa says.

“No,” he says, the word scratching against his throat, his heart.

“Okay, then.” Rosa reaches out briefly, squeezing his shoulder. Physical contact has always been so rare between them, and yet she’s comforted him with her touch more times this week than she has his entire life. “I’ll be leaving today, I think.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“This was a lovely week, Balthazar. It really was.”

Balthazar shuts his eyes briefly. “I’m glad I got to see you again, Rosa.”

“We will see each other again, someday.” Rosa sighs. “Someday sooner rather than later, but nevertheless. Do not forget, brother.”

“Of course not.” What inadequate words. His choices, their consequences and their repercussions, weigh so heavily on him, scratched permanently into the walls of his skull, the thought of ever forgetting seems unthinkable. Sometimes he chokes on them. He hardly has room in his head to think of anything else.

Rosa curls her fingers into a wave, then, and spins on her heel. She walks down the stairs without looking back, and Balthazar looks after her diminishing figure until he can’t see her anymore.

He walks into the kitchen for a glass of water, and Peter is standing in front of the sink.

Before Balthazar can think of anything to say, before the ice in his throat can thaw, Peter turns around, and everything else freezes too.

It’s almost instinctual when their eyes meet, some unspoken pull, a shift in their muscles and their breaths at the same time. Peter’s lips part, in dismay, in shock, Balthazar can’t guess what. He doesn’t think, can’t; his thoughts are a broken monitor. Another shift in the air, static turning to stone, and Peter’s stare turns to granite.

“Balthazar,” he says with a curt nod, and brushes past him out of the room, eyes resolutely on the ground. He is very careful not to let their bodies touch.

He moves like he’s wounded, Balthazar thinks, and the thought steals his breath away.

Swallowing hard, he steps forward to the sink and brings a glass to the faucet. His hand is steady, but when he puts the glass down he finds himself grasping at the counter almost involuntarily, as if for dear life. “Shit,” he whispers to himself. “Shit,” he says again, louder. It’s not as satisfying as he’d hoped.

He takes in a shaky breath, another. His heart trembles with the thought of how unsmiling Peter’s eyes were, like he’d seen ghosts. He hates it, hates that he knows why, hates that he still feels like he could have done something about it even though none of his choices are actually his anymore; hates that they’re back to cold politeness, like how it was at the beginning of the year, or how it was after their fight, but now it feels like they won’t ever have a chance of coming back from it. One step forward, three steps back. The thought is a dull ache under his ribs, pulsating through his veins to his fingertips; his whole body burns with it.

That’s how it should be, right? That’s how it needs to be. This is exactly what needs to happen. And this time, Balthazar thinks with grim satisfaction, it’s unquestionably his fault. Peter can’t blame himself this time for things he doesn’t understand.

He goes back to his room, and he gets started on his assignments. If he can’t have his flatmates as friends or music anymore – if he can’t have Peter anymore – he’ll still have his school work, at least, to put everything he has into. There is nothing else to put himself into, not anymore.

His work is all he has, these days. It’s all he really can do, and so as the days go by, he lets it swallow him whole.

  
  


Ironically enough, the rest of the flat has apparently made eating dinner together a habit. Balthazar can’t in good conscience join in, so most nights he just floats in and out of the kitchen to make his own dinner, carefully timed so that the others have long finished eating and washing the dishes. He’ll go eat dinner at Boyet’s sometimes, hunched over his computer as he works on assignments, his sandwich half-eaten and half-forgotten by his side, alone. He works in his room too because the curfew means he can’t avoid being in the flat as much as he would like, and he stays up so late some nights it hurts to blink when he finally stops working.

He is aware, from the half-whispers he can catch from Ben and Freddie sometimes, that they find his distance bewildering. “It’s almost like he doesn’t even live here anymore,” he catches Ben whispering once, and when he dares to glance over, Ben looks away, abashed.

Maybe it would be better if he didn’t live there, with them, anymore. He’ll have to leave someday anyway, and what does it matter if that day is tomorrow rather than months or even years in the future? But he has nowhere else to go, so being absent in spirit will have to do in place of being absent in body.

Peter doesn’t find his distance confusing at all. Balthazar can see that, every time he catches his gaze and they both look away. The very few times they’re in a situation where that can happen. Balthazar cannot help but notice that Peter has become as scarce in the flat as Balthazar himself. It’s just like at the beginning of the year, except at the beginning of the year he didn’t think every minute of every day that this life and this reality was one he would be giving up soon. At the beginning of the year, or sometime after it at least, it still felt like there might be something to build with Peter, if either of them wanted it badly enough, as if that was the only thing that mattered. At the beginning of the year, he didn’t think nearly this much.

There are some occasions he is unable to avoid his flatmates, despite his best efforts. One night when he comes back from Boyet’s, having already eaten, the rest of the flat are circled round the table.

“Hey, guys,” Balthazar says, smiling faintly as he makes his way toward his room.

“Balthy Balth! Hey there!” Ben says cheerfully.

“Hey,” Freddie says, looking up at him almost warily before returning her attention to her food.

“Balthazar,” Peter says, glancing up from his plate briefly.

“You joining us for dinner?” Ben asks. “I made burritos.”

“Nah, I already ate at Boyet’s,” Balthazar answers. He pretends Peter doesn’t flinch, almost imperceptibly, at his words. “You carry on, though, I have things to do.”

“Wait, Balthazar?” Ben says. “We ought to tell you…”

He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, suddenly and irrationally afraid. “Yeah?”

“Bea and Meg are coming in a week,” Ben says, awkwardly. “Just… A heads-up.”

“Not  _ here _ , surely,” Balthazar says before he can stop himself. Ben and Freddie look up at him; Peter doesn’t. “I mean… the curfew.”

Ben rubs at his eyes. “Yeah, Beatrice and I had a row over that already… But no worries! We’re all chipping in to get them a hotel room nearby. And it’ll only be for a few days. It’ll all be fine.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Beatrice really appreciates not being allowed in her boyfriend’s flat,” Peter says to his plate.

Ben frowns at him. “Excuse me?”

Peter shakes his head. “Never mind.” He gets up, leaving his plate behind. “I’m heading out.”

“Don’t forget the curfew,” Freddie warns.

“Check the calendar,” Peter shoots back, and with that he’s out the door.

Balthazar feels his hand tighten around the door knob.

“What was that about?” Freddie says, crossing her arms across her chest.

Ben glances at Balthazar, and looks away uncomfortably. There’s really no need for Balthazar to add anything to the conversation, either, so he just goes into his room, and does not think about what Peter’s face looked like when he left the flat.

When Beatrice and Meg come, Balthazar isn’t at the house to meet them. His first indication of their arrival is walking toward the flat and seeing a familiar car parked in an unfamiliar place. Beatrice used to give him a fair share of rides in Year 13, when he’d go over to their house to watch movie marathons with the rest of their friends, or when he’d carpool with Hero for music lessons. He’s made a few memories in that car.

Predictably, he sees them as soon as he enters the flat, sitting on the couch and talking to Peter and Ben. They wave him over, and it’s not like he finds it easy to say no.

“Balthy!” Meg says with a wide grin. “It’s been – well, who the fuck knows how long it’s been? Come here.”

He leans in for an awkward hug, wishing he’d stayed in the library for an hour more just so he could have avoided all this. As soon as he has the thought, though, another stab of guilt goes through his heart. He’s not being fair to Bea and Meg, and it really has been a long time, for humans, anyway.

“These losers been treating you well, then?” Bea says, tilting her head toward Ben and Peter.

Balthazar meets Peter’s gaze. Neither of them look away, for once. It’s almost worse.

“Yeah,” Balthazar says, tearing his eyes away. “School’s been kicking my ass a little.”

“It’s all he’s been doing for weeks now,” Ben pipes up. “We hardly ever see him around anymore. Come on, Balth, we can’t see your lovely face for longer than two seconds?”

Balthazar swallows hard and opens his mouth to reply.

“Balthazar is his own person, Ben,” Peter speaks up sharply. “He can do whatever he wants.”

The relief is so strong it floods his lungs even as it mixes with his guilt, and his sadness. He didn’t deserve that.

“Well, promise us you’ll take a break every now and then, yeah?” Meg says, patting him on the shoulder. “A happy and healthy Balth is better than a burned out one.”

Balthazar pulls his mouth into a smile. “Yeah.”

“Ben and Pete were just telling us more about your rules,” Meg says, shooting a glance at the piece of paper hanging on the wall. “Stupid things.”

“Yeah,  _ really _ , though,” Beatrice says, shooting a look at Ben that seems meaningful. “Who would have thought  _ you _ would be one for following rules, Benedick Hobbes?”

“They’re doing us some good,” Ben protests. “The flat’s been more peaceful than it’s been in months…”

Peter glances at Balthazar again, and all the things he doesn’t say are almost too much to bear.

“You don’t know the kind of fights we used to have,” Ben is saying.

“Yeah, sorry you can’t stay with us, though,” Balthazar says. The direction Ben is headed feels dangerous. “It’s a real shame. Would probably liven up the place, really, with you guys around.”

“Tell it to dickface,” Beatrice says, pointing her head at Ben. He opens his mouth, indignant, but before he can retort, Beatrice sighs. “It’s not perfect, but we really do appreciate you guys helping us pay for the hotel. You didn’t have to.”

At that, Ben smiles and takes hold of Beatrice’s hand, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. It’s very sweet. Balthazar makes himself look away anyway.

“Compromise and communication, right?” Ben says like a mantra, squeezing her hand.

“We try, don’t we?” Beatrice says, and smiles back.

“Anyway,” Meg says, shrugging, “it’s only for a few days, right? Though we do wish we could stay for longer. A few days is practically nothing.”

A few days is practically nothing, but then, so is a few years. All of his friends will leave, eventually, and maybe he’s starting to be okay with that. Or maybe he’s pretending he is. Maybe he’s just tired.

Balthazar is so tired of being tired.

“I should really be getting started on this essay,” he says. “Good to run into you, though. I know we’re all glad to see you.”

“Take lots of breaks,” Meg says, wagging her finger at him. “Remember that.”

“Yeah,” he lies as he turns away. He doesn’t have to look, after all, to know Peter will be the only one who sees through him. “I will.”

So Beatrice and Meg come and go, leaving behind laughter and a bit of lightness they can all feel, even Balthazar himself. He tries to see it for what it is, an inevitability. Coming and going, after all, is a truth of his life. There’s no point in finding sadness in the truth.

  
  


“Okay,” Ben says the moment Balthazar arrives back in the flat, one day after class. He and Freddie are sitting on the couch, like they’d been waiting for him. Peter is nowhere to be seen. “This is getting just a  _ little _ ridiculous, Balth.”

Balthazar resists the temptation to just turn around and leave without acknowledging it. He knows what that would do though, at least to Ben; what impact it would have on his self-esteem. He has so few close friends as it is. “What is?” he asks. “I was just gonna grab one of my textbooks and head to Boyet’s to study.”

Freddie throws her arms up. “ _ This _ ,” she hisses. “This right here. You’re avoiding us. We’re your flatmates Stanley, you have to talk to us.”

“Basically,” Ben finishes. “We’re going to talk about this, and you’re not going to run away.”

“Oh,” says Balthazar.

Ben stands. “Look,” he says. “We miss you. Bea told me you’ve been missing Skype dates with Hero and Ursula. They’re worried. And it’s not like we can tell them you’re fine; we never see you anymore. And all this—all this studying, and work, and spending time away from here—it’s not healthy. At all.”

“I’m fine,” he replies. “Look, man, I have a test in a few days, and I really need my textbook.” Balthazar starts to move past him, stomach dropping and roiling in guilt. Ben sighs. The sound of it—so defeated, so lost, like Ben had just lost something, almost makes him stop in his tracks. He doesn’t; what would be the point?

It is better that they lose him now, when it is a process they can see, when they have no way to blame themselves.

“We’re having a movie night tomorrow—compulsory for flat members,” Freddie says, when he makes his way back through the loungeroom, required textbook in his bag. “Rules suspended for one night, so we’re inviting around guests.”

“Shouldn’t that be a flat decision, though?” Balthazar asks, stopping.

“We would have asked you if we’d seen you in the last three days,” Freddie challenges.

“I’m sorry,” Balthazar sighs, truthfully. “I’ve been…”  _ conflicted and sad and angry at myself and resolved and  _ “… busy.”

“Well, you’re hanging up your books for one night,” Freddie says. “And we want to meet your friends—I’ve already invited Kit along, and Peter’s bringing his theatre friends. Ben, are you—?”

“Ah,” Ben says, shrugging, “I’m Skyping Bea as we watch? So she’ll watch with us through the monitor as we watch the movie.”

“Even Ben is bringing Bea, sort of. Bring some of your friends from astronomy club, so we can make sure they’re not murderers or drug dealers or something.”

_ What they are _ , Balthazar doesn’t say,  _ is something you would hate even more. _

Balthazar sighs, playing with the ends of his sleeves. “I’ll see what they say,” he says instead. It’s selfish, he knows, but maybe it will be easier to handle with the others there.

Ben and Freddie both grin. “Great,” Ben crows. “We’re rewatching my Marlowe set, in honour of Peter’s play.”

Freddie grimaces behind his back, a shared joke, and Balthazar lets himself smile at her.

“I’m just going to—”

“Yeah, yeah, of course!” Ben says. “See you—hopefully before tomorrow night.”

Balthazar walks out the door without letting himself take in the mixed hope and disappointment in their eyes.

He texts Paige as he walks to Boyet’s, the way now so engrained in his mind that he doesn’t need to think about each step.

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Do you and Chels want to come to a movie night with my flatmates tomorrow night? _

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ One of them is a hunter, but she hasn’t found me out, yet. _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ YOU LIVE W/ A HUNTER???? _

She calls a moment later, and Balthazar feels suddenly, overwhelmingly guilty, that he’s made her worry over  _ this _ of all things. He picks up.

“You’re flatting with a hunter,” Paige says. “Oh my god, that’s why you never invite us over.  _ That’s  _ what you’re so terrified about in your flat.” It’s not. He doesn’t tell her that. “ _ Balthazar Jones _ , how could you endanger your life like that? You need to get out of there, before they figure you out, and kill you, or—or bring you to the other hunters for  _ who knows what— _ ”

“I’m fine,” he insists, and it’s the second time he’s said that today, and neither one feels like the truth. “She doesn’t know, and she’s not—it’s not really likely she’ll figure that out. Kit says she’s harmless, anyway.”

“Balth…” Paige sighs, and he wishes, suddenly, desperately, that everyone would stop being so worried about him. Like she can sense that through the phone—maybe she can—she makes a small huffing noise. “Alright, we won’t talk about this now. The—um, you asked about the movie night.Your flatmate, Peter, already asked us to it. We’re in a play with him; small world, right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Very small.” So small it feels like it may constrict him, choke him, everything converging and breaking and pulling him apart and pushing him back together.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Paige says. “And we’ll talk about this, properly, and you won’t avoid the subject or tell me that you’re fine. I won’t let you.”

“Okay,” Balthazar says, chest tight.

“Good. You know we love you, right?”

“Of course.”  _ I love you, too _ , he thinks, and the thought frightens him. How much love does he have left, if it is indeed as limited as every other elf has told him? Will there come a time when he simply stops loving, stops caring at all?

“See you tomorrow.” She hangs up, and Balthazar feels sick to his stomach.

  
  


Tomorrow comes too soon for Balthazar.

Almost unconsciously, he finds himself at Boyet’s between class and the movie night, bag weighed down with books and heart weighed down with decisions. He passes Freddie on his way in, and she gives him a weak grin.

“Hey,” she greets. “See you tonight?”

“Six o’clock sharp,” he says, and her grin turns real, relieved.

“Great, see you there.” She rushes off with a disbelieving smile and a cup of coffee.

Balthazar orders and sets his bag down at a table as he waits, thinking about the mound of assignments he has to complete, because that is easier than thinking about the possibility that at some point he may not be even in the human realms to hand them in. When he goes to collect his coffee, Kit grins at him.

“Hey, man,” he greets. “My shift is over in a couple minutes. Want to hang before the movie night?”

Balthazar thinks again of the assignments his professors have piled on him, assignments that he may be able to complete and may not, the life he may be able to complete and may not, and nods. He should probably warn Kit of some things before the night, anyway. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great.” The faery finishes the coffee he’s making and calls to the other barista-- or rather, the owner of the café -- “Hey, Boyet, I’m gonna end my shift now, if that’s cool.”

Boyet nods without skipping a beat. “Take something from the display with you,” he says, and he smiles when his eyes flicker to Balthazar. “Or two. Hey, Balthazar. Holding up well?”

“Well enough,” he answers. Boyet nods and turns back to his customer.

Balthazar smiles and picks up his bag, waiting as Kit puts his apron away and takes two brownies from the glass case.

“Alrighty, then,” Kit says. “Let’s go.”

They leave the café, Balthazar sipping on his coffee.

“How’ve you been?” he asks Kit.

The faery shrugs. “Oh, you know,” he says. “The individual days begin to blur together after a millennia or two. Better than some I’ve experienced. Not worse than most. You?”

“Alright,” he answers.

Kit snorts. “You realise you’re talking to a member of the fae, right? It’s mighty difficult to get lies past us.” He studies Balthazar for a moment, then shakes his head. “Well, I’m here to listen if you want to talk, man.”

Balthazar nods, then takes another sip of his coffee. “So,” he says, after a moment. “You’re friends with Freddie? A hunter?”

Kit grins. “Had some stranger friends, in my time. She’s a harmless one, trust me. Besides, you’ve been living with her for, what, a year, now? You seem to be all in one piece.”

“Well…” Balthazar trails off and looks down at his coffee cup. “There was an incident.”

Kit hums. “Huh,” he says. “I did not get the feeling that she knew about you at all. That’s weird, man.”

Balthazar shakes his head. “No, no,” he amends. “Not me. She accused my... another flatmate, Peter, of being an incubus.”

Kit chuckles. “Oh, god,” he says. “That had to have been an experience for you. I’m sorry for laughing, it’s just—I knew the faery that created that myth, it’s so weird people still believe it.”

Balthazar shrugs and doesn’t say that it’s so much more than a myth these days, that it’s a belief that hurts people and ruins the birthdays of sixteen year olds who deserve nothing but joy.

“ _ Shit _ , though.” Kit shakes his head. “A hunter threatened a human teenager? She could get in a lot of trouble over that. And that can’t have been without consequences in your flat, either.”

“Magic’s been banned in the flat,” he says. “We have a list of rules for—harmony, and such. No talk of magic, magical items, magical anything, really.”

The faery stops walking. “Wait, completely banned?” he asks. “Like, your very existence is prohibited by your flatmates, in rules they have drawn up.”

Balthazar shrugs, stopping too. The street isn’t particularly busy, but he still draws off to the side. “If they knew, yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Basically. Well,” Balthazar shrugs. “The rules are suspended for a few hours, tonight, so we can have friends over. So I’m legal, at least briefly.” The half-joke falls flat the moment it leaves his mouth.

“Alright, alright.” Kit frowns, thinking. “So, I’m thinking we should go sit in the park and eat Boyet’s  _ delicious  _ brownies and talk about this?”

The last thing he wants to do is talk about it. Balthazar takes a sip of coffee, then says, “Sure.”

Kit grins. “Great, it’s just across the road. Come on.”

He follows, not bothering to ask how Kit managed to time that so perfectly, because he doesn’t think the response will really answer anything.

Kit sits under a tree and gestures for Balthazar to join him. “This is Liv,” he says, patting the trunk. “Or, her tree. I don’t think she’s here at the moment? Probably with Vi.”

“Um, okay,” Balthazar says.

Kit nods and looks at Balthazar expectantly. “Well?” he asks, after a moment. “What’s up, man?”

Balthazar plays with the strap of his bag with his free hand. “I’m supposed to go back to the elven realms,” he answers.

“Ah.”

“For the retreat.” Balthazar shakes his head. “I won’t see any of my family again if I stay.” He sighs, takes a sip of his coffee. “All the fae left. What made you stay?”

Kit snorts. “No, that’s not something either of us want to go into. A story spanning millennia, that is. Not one for a sunny afternoon. The question is, what’s keeping  _ you _ from leaving?”

“I don’t…” Balthazar deliberates over his words for a moment. “Nothing. I’m going.”

“Then what’s making it so hard?”

Balthazar sighs. “Many things. The people.”

Kit nods, looking up at the clouds milling about in the sky. “Ah,” he says. “I get that.”

“Yeah?”

Kit takes the brownies out of the paper bag, handing one to Balthazar. The faery takes a bite, chews slowly, swallows. “Humans fade the fastest,” he says, and leaves it at that.

Balthazar breaks off a piece but doesn’t eat it. “Is it—is the pain worth it?”

“That’s pretty subjective, you know. And it really depends.”

“On what?” Balthazar asks.

The faery shrugs. “How much you care, I guess. How much you let yourself care. How you love them, maybe, but it really hurts just as much anyway. I’ve never  _ fallen in love _ , personally, myself, but I’ve met enough humans to love them. Humans on the whole, humans as individuals. They’re such strange creatures, don’t you think? So endearing in their own way, despite their pitfalls; they just wiggle into the spaces of your heart and don’t give you a choice in the matter, you know?”

“I know,” Balthazar agrees. He looks down at his coffee again, words twisting and forming but not meeting his tongue. “I just…” he begins. “I don’t… Chelsey said, once….”

Kit nods again. “The dryad and the witch. One’s going to outlive the other by at least a century. But with them, at least, the pain’s temporary, you know? And the dryads love again. From what I know of elf biology, you don’t.”

“No,” Balthazar agrees. “We don’t.” It’s surprising, really, that he has loved so much in so short a time, that he still has love to spare. He wonders if that means all the elves do, if the secret smiles Rosa gives him and the stern looks his parents have never been unwilling to impart come from a source they so commonly deride. Or perhaps it was the humans, their mannerisms absorbed, their overabundance of love replenishing his stores. Then, because there is no point in keeping it to himself, because if he can’t tell a disgraced faery he can tell no one, because  _ it all may be pointless anyway _ , he says, “I’m in love with my roommate, Peter.”

As soon as he says the word, it feels inadequate. Peter is more than a roommate. Friend doesn’t quite fit, either. But if he’s not any of that, Balthazar doesn’t know what he is.

Kit whistles. “I mean, I figured, but it’s been a while since I heard of an elf falling for a human,” he says. “At least a few hundred years. You hear about friendships, sometimes, and that’s just as painful, but in a different kind of way, you know? Your kind is usually better at keeping your hearts from their grasp.”

Balthazar has never excelled at being an elf. He tells Kit so.

The faery sighs. “Well, man,” he says. “Losing friends… I wouldn’t wish it on many of those I’ve met. And you’ve gone and fallen in love on top of that. Sucks.”

The informal, frank assessment startles a laugh out of Balthazar despite his aching throat. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, it really does.”

“In my vast experience,” Kit adds, “it doesn’t always matter when you leave. Sometimes, it feels like seeing them die kills you, too. Sometimes every last moment you have with them is worth all the ones you don’t. Sometimes it takes a year to smile again. Sometimes it takes three hundred. But if you leave now, or if you stay watch them fade over the course of the century, it doesn’t matter. It hurts, you cry, you mend, you smile. That’s just the way it is, man.”

He struggles with a response to that. “Thanks,” Balthazar says at last, and takes a bite of the brownie—delicious, just as Kit had promised—so that he doesn’t have to say anything else. It’s a different perspective to Paige and Chelsey, certainly-- more cynical, formed through years of love and loss Balthazar could never begin to fathom.

Kit clears his throat. “Yeah, no problem. Uh, should we start heading to your flat, now?”

Balthazar checks the time quickly and shrugs. “Sure, why not?”

Kit stands and grins, helping Balthazar up, and says, “Great. I could use a bit of a pick-me-up after all that.”

He doubts a movie night with the flat, without the rules that have been keeping them civil, will be anything nearing a pick-me-up. He doesn’t think that he’d get anything out of it if it was, too consumed in the consequences of his decisions and Kit’s words and Rosa’s words and everyone’s words, really. But it will be nice, to sit with a friend and pretend his world is not rapidly shrinking.

  
  


The movie night doesn’t go downhill until about half an hour in, which really is a record, given recent events.

Costa—who had greeted Balthazar with an enthusiastic, “I’ve heard so much about all of you—to meet you in person is just an honour. Really. Ah—you aren’t the magic hunter, are you?”—pipes up just about five minutes into the movie—Faustus, which Ben had thought was appropriate.

“There isn’t enough magic in this,” he murmurs to Jaquie, who shrugs. Ben and Freddie stiffen defensively. Peter rolls his eyes. Kit smirks, and Paige and Chelsey look like they’re stifling giggles.

“Faustus is a  _ masterpiece _ ,” Ben retorts.

In the same moment, Freddie snaps, “No magic is enough magic.”

Kit looks like he might have winced, in the low glow of the computer screen.

Costa sighs. “Look, hunter, I understand that this  _ is _ the way that you were raised, but, really, if you could just expand your mind and realise that the existence of magical creatures is no threat to humanity —”

“My mind doesn’t need expanding, thanks. And have you never heard of the second dragon war and its impacts?”

“A trumped up legend with an emphasis on the property damage.”

“What about the—”

“ _ Guys _ ,” hisses Ben. “Let’s just watch the movie. Please?”

They settle back into tense silence, and Balthazar takes a deep breath. He wants to fix it, but he knows he shouldn’t, not with so many other magicals in the room, not with so many people he doesn’t know.

Peter sighs next to him, whispering the next line under his breath almost silently. Balthazar forces back a smile and tries not to lean into him too much, despite their close proximity. The intention of Ben’s seating plan is obvious, and Balthazar doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It would be a sweet gesture, if only Balthazar wasn’t already trying to distance himself.

“This is probably the worst movie I’ve ever seen,” Jaquie whispers loudly, just a few minutes later. Freddie snickers.

“Yeah,” she agrees, to Ben’s glare.

“Would be better with magic,” repeats Costa. “Just saying.”

“He’s studying magic,” Jaquie explains, as if she hadn’t said earlier that she was, too, “with a focus on the intersection between Maori and European legends, and the effect of colonisation on both.” Balthazar only remembers because it was never a topic he’d thought about himself, never something he was taught in his hours of tutoring in the elven realms.

“Which is completely impractical,” Peter says. “How the hell is knowing about  _ magic _ going to get you a job?”

Costa sniffs, offended. “I know  _ plenty _ about magic,” he protests, as if that had ever been in question. “For example, did you know that the elven age of majority is nineteen? Or that doppelgangers always have just one physical attribute that’s different to the person they’re imitating? Or--”

“Hey, Balth,” says Peter, grinning, mocking. “You’re turning nineteen soon. Are you planning on running off into the woods and dancing around a bonfire in a flower crown?”

Balthazar forces a laugh. “Nah,” he says. “Just a small thing with my family.”

“Can we please just watch?” Ben asks, shifting his own computer, to Beatrice’s blurry protest. Paige sends Balthazar a worried look.

The flat falls into silence again.

“Okay,” Peter says a few minutes later, and his knee knocks into Balthazar’s as he shifts. “Freddie. Let’s just say that magic was real. What’s the point of hunting down the people who use it?”

Ben groans. “Guys, the movie.”

Freddie ignores him. “That’s the thing, Peter,” she insists. “They’re not  _ people _ —not human. They’re dangerous. By hunting them down, we protect humanity.”

Paige winces. Chelsey sucks in a breath, eyes downcast. Kit doesn’t blink.

“Can we please just—” Balthazar begins. Peter glances at him, hearing the obvious distress in his tone, and his concern aches more than his practiced apathy.

“Oh, come on, now,” Costa cuts in. “That’s just ill-conceived bigotry.”

Peter is still looking at Balthazar, lips pressed together as if he’s trying to figure out what to say. He looks away, and Balthazar does, too. 

“When I was five years old, a naiad grabbed me by the hair and pulled me into her pond. She tried to drown me.” Freddie is pale, the memory obviously shaking her. “What’s ill-conceived about that?”

“Like the oppression we perpetuate isn’t enough to make them a little wary of us?” Bea challenges, looking like she wants to travel through her computer into the living room. Balthazar would rather travel  _ out _ .

“It was just a hypothetical situation,” Peter protests. “Magic isn’t even real.”

Paige’s eyes meet Balthazar’s across the room, and he can see her own struggle with all the emotions flying around, all the tension and fear and fury, but the most prominent emotion in her eyes is  _ pity _ . He looks away.

“Untrue!” bellows Costa, and he looks as if he’d challenge Peter to an old-fashioned duel, if only any of them had the time or equipment.

“Grow up,” Peter snaps. “Science has obviously disproven all of this--”

“You’re most definitely in the minority here,” Freddie says, firm. “I mean—Balthazar doesn’t believe in magic, but,” she scans the room. “Paige, Chelsey?”

“Wouldn’t discount it,” answers Chelsey, and Balthazar wouldn’t pick out the strain in her voice if he wasn’t so close to her already.

“Not really sure either way, but why not?” Paige adds, forcing a bright smile. For once, it does nothing for the atmosphere in the room. It’s not surprising, really; what can one empath—even one as strong as Paige—do against a room full of bigotry and hate and fear?

Freddie nods triumphantly. The movie is still playing in the background, actors’ plights forgotten in the mess that is the living room.

“Kit?” she asks. “You agree with me, here, don’t you?”

Balthazar doesn’t breathe for half a second. Kit can’t lie; the fae are physically incapable of ever speaking an untruth.

“Well,” Kit shrugs, and none of the humans in this room will ever know the gravity of this moment. “I guess the evidence lines up in favour of magic being real. Wouldn’t say I’d condone the hunting, though.”

Freddie looks hurt, and Balthazar wants to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, a hunter believing a faery to be on her side on a matter like this.

“Why not?” she asks. “They’re threats.”

“I’m not discounting the threat of magical beings,” Kit says, outwardly a picture of calm. “I’m just saying that maybe humans are more of a threat, you know?”

“Not to us,” Freddie protests.

“To--” Kit’s eyes dart to Balthazar surreptitiously. “--them.”

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Beatrice shouts through the speakers. Balthazar almost doesn’t hear her, too absorbed in the confused look Freddie is giving Kit. It’s not hurt, not anymore, just—interested, or wary, or a terrifying mix of both.

Balthazar looks back at Freddie’s laptop, still playing the movie, and convinces himself that it’s just his imagination.

“Okay,” Ben says. “This is literally the first time we’ve not had the rules for  _ months _ . You cannot seriously tell me we’re fighting about magic an hour in.”

“Why would your rules get in the way of fighting about magic?” Chelsey asks. Balthazar realises, suddenly, that he hadn’t told them, just like he hadn’t told them about the hunter.

“This is a magic-free flat,” Ben says, and Balthazar watches the look in Chelsey and Paige’s eyes morph from confusion to horror to pity. “There was too much fighting over the topic.”

“Fighting being the  _ hunter _ threatening to kill me,” Peter snorts.

“I apologised!” protests Freddie. “I was wrong, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Guys!” shouts Ben, a little too loudly for the overpacked flat. “No more talking. We’re being peaceful, remember?”

The conversation dies with a little grumbling, and they watch the terrible movie with the terrible acting and terrible effects, and, somehow, it is less terrible than Balthazar’s life at that moment. That, he thinks wryly, is an achievement.

After, when Costa and Jaquie have said their goodbyes and Kit is making Freddie a cup of coffee in the kitchen, despite the ridiculously late hour, Paige turns to Balthazar.

“Would you mind walking us out?” she asks, and Balthazar can do nothing but nod as she smiles to Peter, “Thanks so much for inviting us over.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Peter says, where he’s beginning to clean up the room. Ben’s already disappeared to say goodbye to Beatrice. His smile doesn’t drop when his eyes meet Balthazar’s, and that, in any other situation, in any other  _ life _ , would be a good thing. It would mean they were on the mend. In this situation, however—this  _ life _ —it means it will be harder to let go, as if it wasn’t hard enough already.

Chelsey waves at him. “Bye, Peter,” she says as they leave, and it sounds almost happy.

As soon as they are outside, however, she and Paige both envelop him in a hug. Balthazar feels himself collapsing into it almost unconsciously.

“What the hell,” Paige mutters into his shirt. “What the hell, Balthazar.” She draws away, and her eyes are filled with tears, and Balthazar’s ribcage aches. He doesn’t want her crying for him, doesn’t want her feeling bad for an issue he can deal with.

“I’m fine,” he insists, the pain in his head blooming. “Really, I—”

“God,” Paige says, and wipes her eyes. “We should probably not be in the same fifty metre radius at the moment. This emotional feedback isn’t doing either of us any favours. But we—we’re talking about this. Tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Balthazar answers, because there’s no way he can’t, because Chelsey is still curled around his chest and he can’t remember the last time he was hugged, because she’s one of the few who might understand.

“Great, I’ll text you,” Paige nods. “When I get home. I won’t risk calling, not while we’re both like this, but tomorrow should be okay.”

Chelsey squeezes him tighter for a moment. “Please stay safe,” she whispers, like a breeze into his ear. She smells like rustling leaves and bark and the ground after it’s rain, and it does not feel like home, but it feels more familiar than the accidental judgement inside the flat, better than the failed attempt at peace.

“I will,” he promises.

They walk down the path holding hands, and Balthazar stands at the top of the stairs, and he wishes, and he dreads.

  
  


_ Pedro is one of the only people who messages Balthazar regularly, which is what makes the silence and stillness of his phone in the aftermath of Hero’s birthday so telling. Hero and Ursula are the only other ones who fall under that category, which also makes too much sense. _

_ Being in the human world, these days, is a bit lonely. He’s not sure who he’s allowed to talk to. As many years as he’s lived among the humans, he’s never come across a situation like this, and he can feel himself drowning slowly in the silence. _

_ And he knows it’s not his fight. Though no one says it, he knows he’s the last person who people would expect this to affect. But how can he not  _ **_feel_ ** _ it? How can he not see the cracks between the people he’s grown to care about almost more than himself, how can he have the solution to all of this in his thoughts and in his powers, and not do anything about it? _

_ He can’t. Or he feels like he can’t, and is just too much of a coward. He can’t decide which is worse. _

_ And the thing is, he is horridly, achingly worried about Hero – he hears the things they whisper at school about her, the silent insults that cut and the looks that burn; though they aren’t meant for him, they dig under his skin mercilessly – but he’s worried about Pedro, too. He knows he shouldn’t be. Pedro is the one who got himself into this mess, and what do the humans always say?  _ **_He dug his own grave._ **

_ Balthazar doesn’t know if he believes that. Balthazar doesn’t know if he thinks Pedro deserves to lie in it on his own. _

_ At the same time, he thinks about all that he ever thought he knew about Pedro, how effortlessly it was shattered in the span of two minutes. He thinks about deceivers, and men, and he no longer knows which word belongs to Pedro more. _

_ If Pedro doesn’t want to talk to him anymore, though, he will not push it. He is not in the interest of forcing himself on his friends, just because he’s worried, or lonely, or any other reason that’s selfish. Not if they don’t want him. _

_ It helps – or, rather, it doesn’t – that Pedro doesn’t have any classes with Balthazar this year. There’s no need for him to figure out what the right way to treat Pedro is. But there’s also no chance for him to ask the questions that fill his heart to the brim, that he can’t quite articulate in his head aside from words like  _ **_How_ ** _? and  _ **_Why?_ ** _ Hero deserves better questions than that. _

_ Yet no questions feel adequate anymore.  _

_ “How is she?” he asks Beatrice, as if it is a question that has an answer. He knows the look she gives him, deep circles under her eyes and brimming with anger and desperation, will never say all the things she wants it to. _

_ “How are you?” he asks Ursula, and she pushes her glasses up her nose and sighs, the weight of whole worlds in her breath. _

_ “What can we say to them?” he asks Ben, who shakes his head and presses his mouth into a thin line.  _ **_Nothing that they’ll listen to_ ** _ , says the set of his shoulders and the darkness in his gaze. _

_ Everyone else holds their words inside, so Balthazar holds them there too. _

_ And then, about a week after the party, Balthazar gets a text he does not expect. _

**_From: Pedro Donaldson_ ** **_  
_ ** Want to hang out today?

_ He shouldn’t. He also dreads the idea of going home right now. _

**_To: Pedro Donaldson_ ** **_  
_ ** Okay.

_ Pedro picks him up in front of school. His arm is casually resting across the top of the passenger seat, his face pulled into a smile. Balthazar does not expend the effort to figure out if it’s one he actually believes in. _

_ “Hey, Pedro,” he says, climbing into the passenger seat. _

_ “Hey, Balth,” he answers. “School okay?” _

_ “Yeah, it was fine.” _

_ “Cool.” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ A pause. Eyes that don’t quite meet each other, and a weighing of the silence. _

_ “So what exactly are we going to be doing?” Balthazar says. _

_ Pedro shrugs. “Whatever. Hang out. You don’t need a ride back home, do you?” _

_ Balthazar allows himself to consider the ludicrousness of Pedro driving him into the elven realms for half a second. “I can walk.” It’s what he always says. _

_ “Of course.” _

_ Pedro fiddles with the radio for a bit, and leans back in his seat as he drives. “God, school’s been a drag.” Pedro shakes his head, sighing. Balthazar shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. “Beatrice isn’t talking to Claudio and me. None of them are. It’s frankly ridiculous.” _

_ Balthazar says nothing. _

_ “You too?” Pedro says, groaning with exasperation. _

_ Balthazar purses his lips. “Pedro…” _

_ “Bro. Come on, now. Don’t be like them.” _

_ “And what does that mean?” Balthazar says. It’s a wonder his voice stays even. _

_ “Don’t be – fuck, I dunno, just don’t be dumb. The research we did – the facts are all there. It’s indisputable.” _

_ “Our friends aren’t dumb,” Balthazar says.  _ **_You aren’t either,_ ** _ he doesn’t add.  _ **_You know better than this. And so do I._ **

_ The silence that falls over them after that is uncharacteristically tense. Not just because of anything they just said, Balthazar thinks. It’s just kind of how they are with each other now. Balthazar doesn’t know how he feels about that thought. _

_ It’s not long before Pedro pulls into his driveway,but neither of them make a move to get out. Balthazar rests his hand against his leg, lets his fingers tap out the rhythm to a song that Pedro will never hear. _

_ “Why’d you ask me to hang out with you, Pedro?” Balthazar says. _

_ “Claud’s... “ Pedro makes a face. “He’s been kind of a drag, too.” _

_ “So I’m Plan B?” Balthazar says before he can quite stop himself. _

_ “What? Of course not.” Pedro pulls his hand through his hair. “We just… haven’t talked in a while.” _

_ “It never occurred to you there might be a reason for that?” Balthazar says. He watches, pretending at impassivity, as Pedro’s face changes. _

_ “Is that what this is about?” He sounds angry, or irritated, or both. It’s not a voice Balthazar likes hearing. _

_ Balthazar turns his face toward the windshield, clenching his jaw. “What else could it be about, Pedro?” _

_ “I thought you, of all people, would understand – “ _

_ “I don’t, Pedro.” Balthazar looks down at his hands. “I really don’t.” _

_ “What?” Pedro demands. “Are you taking sides?” _

_ “I’m not - “ Balthazar almost wants to laugh at how ludicrous the situation is. How could he ever be anything but on Pedro’s side? “Claudio hurt Hero, and you helped him do it. There’s no sides to this.” _

_ “Are you fucking kidding me?” Pedro clenches his fists around the wheel. “She’s  _ **_dangerous_ ** _ , Balth. Magic is dangerous. Magic can ruin people’s lives. You’d know, if you read and saw some of the things we did. It’s all there, all the facts, right in the history people are too cowardly to talk about. That’s what’s at stake here. She could destroy us all, her and everyone else like her. And we can’t let that happen.” _

_ On some level, Balthazar probably knew this was coming. The knowledge that this is what Pedro thinks now does not stop each word from feeling like a wound that slices at his heart. He’s heard these things before, words and glances that build up like paper cuts that sting. But the thing is, as much as they hurt, he can live with paper cuts. He doesn’t know if he can live with this. _

_ “I’m not going to stand for it,” Pedro is saying. “I’m not going to stand by and just let magic destroy Claudio. My  _ **_friend_ ** _ , Balth. If I stood by silent I’d almost be as bad as  _ **_them_ ** _.” _

_ “Last year,” Balthazar says, faintly, “you said…” _

_ ‘Some people and some things – they’re too amazing for magic not to exist.’ The recollection of the smile that accompanied those words is vividly, painfully clear amidst the blurred lines of his memories. Something in his gut twinges. _

_ “Yeah, well.” Pedro laughs humorlessly. “You learn things in a year, don’t you? I was naive last year. We all were.” _

**_You still are_ ** _. The words stay stuck in his throat. _

_ “Maybe I shouldn’t be here,” Balthazar says. _

_ Though he does not look, he can feel Pedro’s gaze turn sharply toward him. _

_ “Don’t,” Pedro says. It sounds like a thought he can’t finish. _

_ It occurs to Balthazar that it would be awfully easy to just – do it. To just admit it. To just admit that Pedro and Claudio hurt Hero for absolutely no reason at all, and that Balthazar was the one who knew it. What does it matter that telling the truth means losing his safety, his peace of mind, his identity? What more does he have left to lose? _

_ “Pedro.” _

_ “What?” Pedro snaps. _

_ He could just  _ **_say_ ** _ it. It would be easy as that. _

_ “Succubi don’t…” _

_ Pedro’s phone chimes, then, a text. Pedro’s brow furrows. “Hold that thought.” Balthazar watches, heart pounding, as he watches Pedro take out his phone, unlock his screen, eyes glancing over the words of the message. _

_ Balthazar watches as every part of Pedro’s face becomes still. _

_ “What is it?” he says, fear biting at his lungs. _

_ “Hero.” Pedro’s voice is expressionless. “Hero’s in the hospital.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A [wonderful edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142532579653/we-try-dont-we-beatrice-says-and-smiles) by the amazing [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	11. Chapter 11

Paige doesn’t text Balthazar that night. He falls asleep almost as soon as he finished helping Peter clean up the living room, exhausted from the arguments that had flown through their flat like nuclear missiles. He wakes up, however, to a series of texts, sent at an hour that suggests she’d had no sleep at all.

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ srry 4 last nite _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ want to meet @ my flat? _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ we have some things 2 talk about _

Balthazar rubs his eyes and pushes himself out of bed before answering.

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Sure _

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ What time? _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ whenever _

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ I’ll be over in half an hour _

Balthazar dresses and grabs a piece of fruit before he leaves; the girls are likely to have coffee, anyway, and he’d rather not stay around and have to explain his distance. No one understands the consequences of the previous night’s arguments—no human, anyway.

The walk to Paige and Chelsey’s feels both longer and shorter than it should be, Balthazar left alone with only his thoughts and doubts and regrets. He remembers their hugs, kind and warm and so foreign. That should be sad, he thinks, but it is not so strange, for the elves. He wonders if that should be sad, too.

He reaches the girls’ flat and knocks softly, half hoping they won’t hear him.

Paige opens the door, Chelsey hovering behind her. “Hey,” she says, soft.

“Hi,” Balthazar answers.

“You want to come in?”

_ Not really _ , he wants to lie. “Yes.” Paige opens the door wider and steps back.

Chelsey grins as Balthazar walks in. “Tea or coffee?”

“Coffee, thanks.”

They settle down on the couch in the living room, the three of them with their hot beverages, Balthazar between the two girls.

“So,” Chelsey says. “You do have some things to talk about, don’t you, little elf?”

Paige’s shoulder bumps his. “We love you,” she adds. “We’re here because we love you.”

_ You’re here because it’s your home _ , he wants to say. The words stick in his throat.

“Balthazar,” Paige says. “It hurts that you’re hurting. It hurts that we can’t help. Please, let us help.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he answers, guilt twisting around his stomach and up his spine.

“You aren’t, I swear. Please, just tell us. Let us help you.”

“Okay,” he breathes. “Yeah—um…”

Where to start? Kit had known from the beginning. Rosa had brought the dilemma. He’d told no one else. But Paige is only asking for the flat situation; there’s no need to burden her and Chelsey with everything.

Balthazar swallows. “I know that I’m going to outlive all of them,” he says, and it feels like a confession. “I know it’s wiser to stay away. It’s so hard, though, when they’re this close.”

“Okay,” Paige whispers, reassuring. 

“It hurts to be so close.”

“Why did you come, then, if the proximity is so painful?” Chelsey asks, in a creaky, sad sigh.

“I was already friends with Ben and Peter, and they needed an extra flatmate, so I decided to stay in Wellington with them and Freddie.”

“The hunter,” Chelsey provides.

“Yeah,” Balthazar takes a sip of his coffee. “She’s not… she hasn’t found me out. She’s fine.”

Paige nods. “Doesn’t mean she creates a great environment for you, what with all the bigotry.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “That’s not what hurts the most, though.”

Both girls are silent, waiting, and he goes on.

“I don’t—I was always warned not to love humans, you know? I was warned that it would only bring pain, that it would end terribly for all involved. I thought it would be worth the pain, but…” He thinks of Ursula’s quiet smile and Hero’s laughter and Bea’s arguments and Ben’s antics that bury his caring and Freddie’s fear and Kit’s hardwon joy and Chelsey’s hugs and Paige’s songs. He thinks of Peter’s eyes, his smile, his support. He thinks of not having them, and his ribcage aches and trembles. “I only have so much love to give,” he says, “and I am losing so much of it to circumstances I can’t control.”

Chelsey’s head finds his shoulder, and he tries and fails to keep his breath steady.

“They hate who I am, and they don’t know it,” he whispers, throat burning and jumping. “Pete—Peter hates what I represent. Freddie fears my heritage. I can’t be who anyone wants me to be.”

Paige places his coffee cup on the ground and replaces it with her hand. He hopes she can’t feel him trembling.

“The last two times people have been accused of being a magical around me, there was so much hatred. One of them ended up in the hospital. How can—I’m not going to age with them. They’ll notice, one day. And they’ll know I could have prevented so much pain, if I’d only said so earlier. They’ll hate me.” He pauses, breathes, swallows thickly. “Peter will hate me.” He takes another breath. “No matter what I do, I’m going to lose them.”

Paige pulls his head onto her shoulder, and he can feel the dampness of the fabric on his cheek. He doesn’t know if they’re his tears or hers.

“Oh, Balth…” she breathes. “I’m so, so sorry this is happening to you.”

She begins to hum, and the tune is not happy, but it’s not mournful, either, and she lets him shake into her shoulder until he can’t anymore, the girls’ arms locked around him like vines, like safety, like support.

Later, when they are all calmer, the  soft noon light filtering through the window and bringing out the soft leaf patterns in Chelsey’s hair, Paige speaks again.

“I know that wasn’t all of it,” she says. “But I’m not going to make you tell us. Just, please know that we’re here, if you ever need to.”

“Thanks,” Balthazar breathes, voice unsteady.

He doesn’t say he loves them; he doesn’t want to lose them, too.

  
  


Balthazar leaves Paige and Chelsey’s flat with the intention of walking around Wellington for a while. He’d be missing a couple lectures, probably, but a trembling heart is harder to still in the middle of a lecture hall, and if there’s anything he can find peace in, it’s long walks. 

It’s a bit ironic that he’s willing to let himself miss class today when the only thing he’s let himself do lately is school work. But he can’t ignore the more pressing matters in his life - disintegrating home life, disintegrating relationships, disintegrating everything; the push and pull of magic and not-magic that has ruled every thought and every choice he’s ever had since entering the human world, an inescapable conflict - forever. If nothing else, Paige and Chelsey have reminded him of that.

He wonders just how keenly Paige could feel the storm of his heart just then, whether she could feel it roiling under her ribcage too, or if she only caught brief glimpses of it, like lightning. Maybe it doesn’t really matter in the end. In her presence, his heart was only a drizzle, if only for a little while.

Because none of them can do anything about it, really. Not even Balthazar can. But these moments of light, when everything feels so oppressively dark - surely they still matter. Surely Paige and Chelsey’s love is not futile.

Halfway down the road to nowhere, somewhere in the middle of his messy thoughts, his phone vibrates in his pocket.

**From: Kit** **  
** _ Yo, mind helping me with something? _

**To: Kit** **  
** _ What is it? _

**From: Kit** **  
** _ I’ll tell you when you get back to your flat _

**To: Kit** **  
** _ You’re at my flat right now??? _

After Balthazar gets back to the flat – and after a somewhat confused series of inquiries involving a harassed looking Freddie who all but sprints out the door past him, an unconcerned Kit spread out lazily across his couch like he was born to belong there, and an angrily beeping coffee maker – he discovers that Kit did not, fact, break into his flat, but was invited over by Freddie before she realized today is one of those days they actually have classes.

“That’s very impressive,” Balthazar notes. “That you were somehow able to cause her to forget her own schedule, I mean.”

“It’s fine, anyway,” Kit says with a shrug. “Whatever she wants to talk to me about is a conversation that should probably wait.”

The memory of the previous night, accusations flung around as if the rules had never happened, uncharacteristic tension in Kit’s shoulders and stormy displeasure in his eyes, rises up unbidden. Balthazar swallows down his sudden dread.

“And you didn’t mind getting stuck here?” he says.

“Nah,” Kit answers, waving his hand. “Something I wanted to ask your help with, anyway. Figured I could kill two birds with one stone.”

“Oh yeah.” A pause. “What was that, again?”

“A song.” Kit tilts his head, drawling the word. “It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?”

A song. He thinks about his guitar, untouched for weeks, and his unopened notebook sitting at the bottom of his drawer. He’s been too busy with work to think seriously about his music. As soon as he has the thought, his heart clenches.

“It’s been a while,” he says.

“Has it?” Kit raises an eyebrow, the only sign that he finds what Balthazar said interesting.

“A few weeks.” Balthazar cracks a smile. “But for a musician, any time not doing it is too much.”

“Right.” Kit fishes a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it over to him. Though it looks a bit crumpled, Balthazar can see from its sharp edges that it’s been looked after carefully. “Shall we, then?”

“Yes,” Balthazar says, and despite himself, despite everything, the thought of playing music sends a warm thrill shooting into his fingertips. He allows himself a grin. “We shall.”

They move into his bedroom. Kit jumps onto his bed with gusto, sprawling over it as comfortably as he has on anything. “Nice. I like the view.”

Balthazar glances at the window. He never has the heart to draw the curtains. “Nice, isn’t it? Wellington’s a gorgeous city.”

“I’ve been to worse, yeah.” Kit crosses his arms behind his head and squints at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Salem in the 1600’s? A bit of a nightmare.”

“Careful there, you’re dangerously close to breaking Rule Number One,” Balthazar warns jokingly.

“What? I don’t even live here!” Kit says, mock indignation coloring his voice even as he smiles.

“These walls aren’t thick,” Balthazar says, and though he means it as a joke, as soon as he says it, he thinks of Freddie the hunter, and he can tell Kit has thought of her too.

“Well. She’s out, anyway.”

“Right.” Balthazar glances down at the piece of paper still in his hands. “Do you…?”

“No, that’s for you.” Kit taps his temple. “I’m covered.”

Balthazar unfolds the sheet of paper, glancing over the words. Kit’s handwriting is surprisingly beautiful, spidery loops and loving strokes sprawling across the page, so neat Balthazar might believe it to be typed if he couldn’t see grooves in the paper where a pencil once dug in too hard. As soon as he thinks it, though, he wonders why he’s taken aback. Kit has had hundreds and thousands of years to improve his penmanship.

“Blue as the sky dark as the moon, a time when someday is too soon…”

Kit sings the opening lines as Balthazar reads them, scarily accurate with his timing. He feels the truth of them, somewhere deep inside his heart and lungs, even as he knows it’s a truth Kit has lived with for far longer than he has.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, pretending the lyrics don’t make him want to choke.

“Oh.” Kit blinks, as if unaccustomed to compliments. “Well, thanks.”

“What do you need my help with?” Balthazar glances back down at the page. “It seems like you’ve already got something to be proud of here.”

“Well…” Kit pauses, weighing his words. “I remember that night you played that song, with Paige and Rosa. And of course I know Paige singing must have had something to do with it. But I also remember this look on Rosa’s face. And yours. Like singing it had helped you figure something out.”

“Ah.”

He shrugs, nonchalant, but Balthazar knows Kit well enough by now to know nonchalance is hardly ever something he actually means. “Maybe I want to figure it out too.”

Balthazar reads the rest of the song more slowly. He has questions and a dull ache in his heart, a sadness for the quiet pain he can feel thrumming beneath these carefully written words, but he keeps it all to himself. Kit’s story, after all, is one only he can choose to tell. To have caught as much a glimpse as he has of it is more than enough already.

“Let’s do it, then,” he says.

It takes a little while to hash out a chord structure for the song. Kit is patient and kind when Balthazar stumbles over the words, and, though it’s been some time, Balthazar’s fingers do not slip across his strings. There’s some laughter, some contemplation. Kit’s low, rumbling voice is enough to put him a bit at ease.

They decide Balthazar should join in on the last verse. The harmonies come together almost effortlessly. He sings the words that aren’t his, and finds a bit of himself in them anyway.

“Off they parted separate ways, and yes, you know they counted the days…”

Though, of course, they will always be Kit’s. Balthazar wonders who they are about, if it’s just a person or all the mortals Kit has ever known. It could easily be both. Or it could be about no one. Balthazar doesn’t know if Kit is the kind of person to write songs about no one.

“Loneliness creates weeks from days, there’s no way the memories fade…”

And there’s no way Balthazar could ever begin to figure out what these words mean to Kit. But when he looks at him, eyes serious, he knows they mean something. And they mean something to Balthazar, too. He just doesn’t know what it is, or if it’s the same thing for the both of them.

“Oh brother, sigh, ‘cause I’m tired of having thoughts to hide.”

But god, Balthazar is tired of it too. His whole life is a secret. Maybe he’s tired of that most of all.

“That’s very good.”

Balthazar looks up, startled out of his thoughts.

“Your harmonies.” Kid nods. “Good.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Balthazar clears his throat. “So are you planning on playing this anywhere?”

“No.” Kit props himself up on his elbow. “I need to maintain an air of mystery, don’t I?”

It’s a lighthearted statement, but Balthazar can tell, somehow, that what he really means is,  _ this isn’t a song other people need to hear. _

“I’m pretty sure that’s what Freddie thinks of you,” Balthazar comments. “She thinks you’re mysterious.”

“God. If only she knew.” Kit laughs, and it sounds bitter as coffee grounds.

“She’s harmless, isn’t she?” Balthazar says, pretending he’s not trying to reassure himself.

“Not really. I think I’m just tired.”

_ Of dealing with this, _ Kit doesn’t say. Balthazar gets that, more than he can ever admit out loud.

Because the thing is, the song they just sang doesn’t tell a happy story, like the ones that play on the radio about love and youth and joy. This song doesn’t tell the story of someone who has lost something, either. This song tells the story of someone who loses everything and everyone, and is used to it, and doesn’t want to be. This song tells the story of someone who wants to be understood, and never was.

Balthazar thinks he gets that, too.

“Thanks for helping me with this, man,” Kit says seriously. “Ought to be getting back to Boyet’s now, though.”

“Yeah, probably.” Balthazar sets his guitar down carefully. “It really is a good song, Kit.”

Kit smiles, just a little. “I don’t think it matters if it’s good or bad, honestly. It’s just the truth. My truth.”

The words strike something inside Balthazar, something deep and unknowable. He watches as Kit gets up and walks to the door, and his head is filled to the brim with thoughts of love and space and separation, and truths he can’t know and truths he will never say.

“Did you figure it out, then?” Balthazar asks, almost on a whim.

Kit’s hand pauses on the doorknob.

“Maybe,” he says slowly. “Maybe I did.”

He goes, then, and Balthazar looks down at the sheet of paper still balanced on his knee. Maybe, indeed.

  
  


The next day, Paige texts Balthazar again, and he wonders, briefly, if this is her way of keeping tabs on him. It probably is.

**From: Paige Moth**

_ u free @4-6 today??? _

**To: Paige Moth**

_ My last class finishes at three thirty, sure. _

**From: Paige Moth**

_!!!! _

**From: Paige Moth**

_ I need ur help w a music thing _

**From: Paige Moth**

_ can you come to a faustus practice to help me w the soundtrack??? _

**From: Paige Moth**

_ I’ll meet u outside your lecture hall? _

Balthazar deliberates for a moment, pausing as he puts one of his textbooks into his bag.

**To: Paige Moth**

_ Peter is in the class. I can just head over with him. _

It’s not wise. It’s not a good choice in the slightest, not with his decisions or his sudden distance from the flat, from Peter. Peter might refuse to go with him, or ask questions. Balthazar doesn’t think he’d be able to lie to him without feeling ill. Then again, that’s not anything new for him.

**From: Paige Moth**

_ thx!!! _

**From: Paige Moth**

_ i’ll pick up some coffee 4 us _

Balthazar pockets his phone and picks up his bag, grabbing an apple from the kitchen. Ben and Freddie are both in there, seemingly in the middle of a whispered argument. Ben’s head whips up when Balthazar walks in.

“We need to figure out a punishment for breaking rule one,” he states, matter of fact and annoyed.

Balthazar’s heart stops for half a terrifying second.

“Oh  _ come on _ ,” Freddie protests, and Balthazar’s heart starts again. Freddie wouldn’t be defending him if he’d been found out. “It’s an academic text. Costa loaned it to me.”

Ben scowls. “You’re the one who didn’t want magic,” he says. “Freds, that’s just not fair.”

“You aren’t being fair. It’s just a book on the fae—”

“You’ve broken it again! You talked about  _ it _ !”

Balthazar looks at the time. “Um, I need to get to class,” he interjects. “We should probably talk about this as a whole flat, anyway.”

He ducks out of the kitchen without listening to their responses, tiring already despite the early hour. He really needs to learn not intercede in every argument he hears, especially not without giving himself time to recover between each one. He’s been running on fumes and short bursts of energy for months.

Classes blur by, but he takes notes, so he can just go back and review what he doesn’t catch. In his last class of the day, he sits next to Peter, something he wasn’t able to give up as he drew away from the flat.

“Hey,” he whispers, and Peter starts. All the time before and after these lectures have been spent in tense silence.

“Hey, Balth,” he greets. “Didn’t really see you yesterday.”

Balthazar shrugs. “Was busy with friends.”

“Cool, yeah,” Peter nods.

“So, Paige asked me to help with music for Faustus. Is it cool if I tag along with you after class?” Balthazar asks, and the question shouldn’t feel like such a risk, but does.

Peter frowns, and Balthazar can’t tell if he’s confused or annoyed. He should be able to tell that sort of thing, he thinks. He used to. “Yeah, man,” Peter says after a moment, and smiles. He looks like he wants to say something more, but the teacher arrives and they both fall silent.

After the lecture ends and they’re both packing up their stuff, Peter turns to Balthazar again.

“I thought…” he starts, then trails off.

Balthazar doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know how.

Peter sighs. “Nevermind. Let’s just get to practice.”

They make shallow conversation on the way over, simple small talk and awkward questions. Balthazar tries not to hate it, the way they can’t even talk to each other anymore. It’s his own fault, anyway; he did this to them, and he has no right to complain about it.

“So,” Peter says, stopping him before they go in. “I know you’ve met Costa before, but he was actually rather mild then, and this is his natural environment, so, just—“

_ Don’t worry _ , Balthazar wants to reassure him,  _ one intense human is the least of my worries. _

“Thanks,” he says, instead, and Peter snorts softly.

“Don’t mention it.”

Peter is right about Costa, -- _“No, Jaquie, you must embody the spirit of a bird that is caged and wishes to be free! Flap your wings! Strain! Fly!”_ \-- but Balthazar hangs back next to Paige and helps her through the songs she’s figuring out, giving suggestions where he can. She doesn’t really need his help, he can tell, is perfectly capable on her own, but it’s nice.

He tells her so, and she shrugs blushingly.

“I don’t -- you really thinks so?” she says, even though she must sense his sincerity. “I know a lot of people’s enjoyment of my music comes from, you know -- other stuff.”

“Really,” Balthazar nods, chest warming at the sensation of helping someone else for once, his own issues no longer centre stage.

Paige grins, and shows him the next song with a confidence that had only fringed her words earlier.

It’s nice to sit there, working on music that has no bearing on anything with a friend, listening to Costa direct a play that would never be seen in the elven realms.

“Peter,’ chides Costa at one point, in a tone that may be soft by his standards but not by any other. “I don’t see you putting your all into this. It’s like you don’t  _ care _ .”

Peter scoffs, and Balthazar doesn’t look up.

“Come on, Costa,” he protests. “It’s just a bit of fun, anyway. It’s not real.”

“It’s no more or less real than life.”

“It’s  _ magic _ ,” Peter says. “Like, so much magic. I don’t even understand how you managed to fit so much magic into this piece—look that’s not the point. The point is, it’s not real, so what the hell is the point?”

“I think it’s real,” interjects Jaquie, sounding affronted.

“Well, yeah—but like,” Peter pauses, and Balthazar wants to look up, to see if he’s frowning or visibly floundering or smiling. He doesn’t. “I don’t believe in it,” he amends. “So what’s the point?”

Costa sighs loudly. “Peter,” he says. “This is something you need to figure out for yourself, something every actor needs to figure out for themselves.”

“That’s not cryptic as fuck,” Peter mutters, and Balthazar has to fight back a grin, despite himself. He looks up and meet’s Paige’s eyes. She raises her eyebrows, and he looks back down at the guitar.

Costa ignores him. “Okay, back to practice. Peter, in order for this to work, you need to really think about what we're doing here. Think about the lines, put yourself into it. Forget your own beliefs; you are Faustus.   _ Faustus _ believes in magic, and, for the duration of this play, so do you. Okay, go!”

Five minutes into the scene, Costa calls, “ _ Cut _ !” and Balthazar looks up sharply.

“This isn’t working,” snarls Peter. “I’m going on break.”

Costa crosses his arms. “No, you’re staying here until we get the scene right,” he states imperiously.

“I fucking do what I want.” The tension in Peter’s shoulders, in the set of Costa’s feet, bleeds into the room, filling it slowly. Balthazar meets Paige’s eyes and fights the urge to sprint out of the room.

“I’m your director, of course you don’t!” snaps Costa, waving wildly. “So unless you’d like me to find someone to fill in your spot, you’ll check your prejudice at the door and get into character!”

Peter’s fists and jew clench. “Fine,” he grinds out, and takes a deep breath. Calmer, he says, “From the top?”

“Wonderful, my good fellow,” Costa grins. “From the top it is. Action!”

Costa insists on a group hug once the scene is done. “We’ve succeeded!” he crows. “This calls for a celebration; let’s hug it out.”

Balthazar thinks, for a moment, that Peter might resist, draw away from the theatre group in scowls and biting defenses, but he just smiles and joins in. Maybe this is good for him, after all; despite the clash of ideas, the camaraderie presents an acceptance beyond what the flat ever offered for anyone.

After, when Balthazar and Peter walk back to the flat together, the air between them is heavy. Peter’s brow is slightly furrowed in thought, and neither of them attempt to make conversation until the very end.

“Hey,” Balthazar says quietly, as they’re about to head into the flat, where he knows they’ll be thrown back into the dilemma of magic and prejudice and the rules, especially now that a rule has been broken. “I think it’s good for you. The play, I mean.”

He means:  _ I think Costa is a good influence  _ and  _ I’m glad you have more friends who don’t judge you _ and  _ I’m sorry we weren’t there for you like they are _ and  _ It’s good they’ll be there for you when I’m gone _ .

“Thanks, bro,” Peter says, quiet, and it feels like maybe that means more, too.

 

 

_ Balthazar finds, during his first few months in Wellington, that the distance from his kingdom is easier to forget than he’d anticipated. _

_ There is little in a city hundreds of kilometers away from home to remind him of it, to begin with. The flowers in the elven realms only flourish within the bounds. And he is constantly, incessantly, surrounded by humans, by their noise and their music and laughter, by their lives. Wellington is a city that feels alive. _

_ And Balthazar doesn’t think he minds being around humans so much. It’s not so different from his life in Auckland, except here he doesn’t have frowning family members with their silent and smothering disapproval, and oppressive responsibilities, and biting looks from Rosa that never fail to fill his heart with guilt. _

_ Rosa hasn’t sent him any messages since he left. By this time, she’ll certainly have heard of his departure. It’s best if it stays silent between the two of them, probably. He almost convinces himself he believes in that. _

_ School is hard. All of the studies he had in his homeland are useless, of course, and then there’s an almost frightful sense that when it comes to his schoolwork here, he’s on his own. There are teachers and tutors, but when he looks around his lecture hall, he sees dozens of other students with their heads hunched down, and they’re all working without complaint or asking for help, so surely he must be expected to do the same. Even if he thought he needed the assistance, he doesn’t know if he would dare to ask. _

_ Life in the flat, as it turns out, is harder. _

_ Ben is homesick for the first few weeks, except Balthazar isn’t quite sure it ever goes away. Balthazar knows because Ben is not one for quiet complaining – “Wellington would be so much better if Bea was here” is a frequent statement made at the dinner table, or “studying is so boring I can literally feel my brain melting out of my skull” – but there are other things Balthazar can see it in, too. The letters he writes to Beatrice and other friends at home - “because Skype calls aren't  _ **_enough_ ** _ ” - long, rambling, messily crossed out lines and sentences underlined three times for emphasis, are a frequent distraction from schoolwork. Sometimes they’re studying together and Ben stops looking at his flashcards to stare out the window for a long while, the look in his eyes impossible to read. Once, when Balthazar walks into the living room and catches Ben with his laptop on his knees and his fingers reaching out to touch his computer screen, there is a tenderness that is at once rare and familiar in his smile. Balthazar doesn’t have to ask to know who Ben was skyping that time. _

_ They study together often, because the library is too far away or because none of the others are up for group study or whatever excuse they manage to come up with this time. Often it is in silence, pencils scratching over paper, dead pages rustling. There is a silent understanding that they both have a lot on their minds, these days. _

_ “My English professor is daft,” Ben declares one afternoon in a rare and loud exception to this unspoken rule. _

_ “Well, they’ve got at least one BA and one master’s over you, don’t they?” Balthazar teases, glancing up from his notebook. _

_ “Well – “ Ben makes some sort of wild, ineffectual gesture with both of his hands. “That is simply unfair, Balthy, years of book learning doesn’t actually make you  _ **_smart_ ** _.” _

_ “Fair, I guess.” Balthazar leans back in his chair. “What is it this time?” _

_ “Our next essay topic is completely up to our choice.” Ben pulls his face into a frown. “What the hell is that? I can’t even pick what I want for breakfast half the time, how am I supposed to be able to pick what I want to write for class? God, I might as well put all the works ever written by any English-language author on a wheel and fucking spin it. Throw a dart for the theme, call it a day.” _

_ It might be a joke, Balthazar thinks, if it isn’t for the slight panic that he can hear just under Ben’s rapid words. _

_ Ben crashes his forehead down onto the table, cushioned by his forearms, and groans. _

_ “What’s the fucking point, Balth?” _

_ “What do you mean?” _

_ “I mean – “ Ben lifts his head up so that his chin rests on the table. “That’s what they always say about uni, isn’t it? You go there to learn to think for yourself. How do you  _ **_do_ ** _ that, though? How do you learn how to think for yourself before you even grow up?” _

_ Balthazar has spent a lifetime thinking about choice and thought and supposed independence. Eighteen years hasn’t been long enough to get at an answer for himself, let alone for a human, a person to whom those words mean something entirely different. He stays silent. _

_ “In summary,” Ben says as he straightens, loudly, “studying? Fucking terrible.” _

_ There are moments – and this is not the first Balthazar has seen, not from Ben – of weakness, when the bravado chips away for just a little while, and Balthazar never knows how to explain them. Masks do not fall when elves choose to wear them, but in all the years he’s known these humans, he has seen whole fortresses crumble and fall around their hearts. Humans, he thinks, are made to crack. Maybe that’s what he’s always seen in them – glass hearts that remind him of his own. _

_ Seeing the cracks for what they are doesn’t make them any easier to deal with, though, because heaven knows he hardly knows how to deal with his own, so Balthazar just nods and looks back to his own work. _

_ Freddie, as it becomes increasingly apparent with the passing days and weeks, takes her work frighteningly seriously. _

_ She decides, for example, that everyone gets designated bookshelf space in the living room. Hers is chock full, almost exceeding her own designated requirements, of magical books. _

_ Balthazar almost wants to go through them, see what the humans get wrong and right when slandering his people, but the symbols on the spines – knives, tiny pixie skulls, tree stumps – give him heart-pounding chills. The pages of these books are filled with ghosts, and just looking at them makes him feel haunted, the whispered screams of death and pain and axes sinking beneath his skin. Regardless of their contents, they are books of hate and murder, and he can’t bring himself to pass by the bookshelf without a horrible shiver down his spine.  _

_ And, anyway, it’s best Freddie believes he has no interest in magic. It’s safer that way. _

_ She presses him about it sometimes, though. Not all the time – it is clear, probably even to Freddie, that she is outmatched in this flat – but he knows he seems more susceptible to persuasion when the louder personalities of their flat mates aren’t around. _

_ “Are you sure you’ve never thought about it?” she says frequently, over toast in the morning or when they’re helping each other put up the dishes at night. “Like, really, really sure?” _

_ “Enough to know I don’t need to form an opinion on it,” Balthazar always says with a faint smile. _

_ Most times, she doesn’t continue, just gives him an odd look and changes the conversation, but sometimes she does. “Yeah, right,” she scoffs one night. “ _ **_Everyone_ ** _ has an opinion on magic. Even if you’re Peter Donaldson.” _

_ His heart skips a beat, infuriatingly. “Yeah, well, everyone has a right to their opinions. And I have a right not to have one.” _

_ “Right.” She shakes her head. “You’re a strange one, you know that, Stan?” _

_ He laughs awkwardly. “Sure. What about you, though?” _

_ “What about me?” Freddie says, tilting her head. _

_ “Why do you believe in it so strongly?” He shrugs, like these aren’t questions he’s thought about every single night. “You said hunting pays for your schooling?” _

_ “Well…” Freddie shifts her weight. “That’s not  _ **_exactly_ ** _ right. Don’t tell the others, though.” _

_ “What do you mean?” Balthazar says, interest piqued. _

_ “I mean – “ Freddie looks away. “It’s more that my parents agreed to pay for my schooling as long as I pledged to hunt too. Not that I don’t want to,” she adds hastily. “It’s what I dreamed of, ever since I was a kid. But – yeah. That’s what’s up.” _

_ “You weren’t a hunter before school, then?” Balthazar has to concentrate to force every ounce of surprise out of his voice. _

_ “I trained,” Freddie says, raising her chin up a defiant notch. “I know everything there is to know about magic. And I know, most of all, that it’s a danger, to the best and the worst of us. It’s not something I’ll forget any time soon.” _

_ “Right.” Balthazar looks back to the sink water. His hands do not tremble. _

_ It’s the only time they really talk in depth about magic. She reserves the deep conversations for Ben, who is happy to talk about anything that makes for interesting discourse. Though he never outright seems to accept her outspoken statements about magic – last year’s events are a heavy memory on them all – he doesn’t reject them, either, and at least he can talk about them. _

_ Peter does not talk about magic at all. Not anymore. _

_ Balthazar doesn’t know if Peter misses home like Ben does. It’s all right if he doesn’t – Balthazar can relate, obviously – but, after a while, it occurs to Balthazar that Peter is never around in the flat long enough for him to tell. _

_ He knows, vaguely, where Peter goes every night. It’s impossible to miss, with the eyeliner smudged around his eyes before he goes out at night and the sound of him barging in in the early hours of the morning that almost always means he’s brought someone home. _

_ Not that there’s anything wrong with any of it. Peter deserves to live the life he wants, to see who he wants. It’s just hard to ignore, the absence of Peter and the presence of everyone else. Some nights the contrast is almost too overwhelming. _

_ And not that it was always this way. A few weeks after their first semester starts, Peter knocks on his door a little past ten. It is, as far as Balthazar knows, the first time Peter really goes out. _

_ “Hey, Balth, I’m going to town tonight,” Peter says. Eyeliner is, admittedly, a startlingly good look on him. “Wanna come along?” _

_ Any other night this week, Balthazar might have said yes, but tonight he has readings for two classes and an essay for another. “Maybe some other time,” he says. _

_ “Oh, come on. Don’t be an e – “ Peter halts. The word he doesn’t say echoes around the room anyway. “Don’t be a prude.” _

_ “I’m just trying not to fail my classes, man,” Balthazar answers, looking back at his notes. _

_ “Right.” Peter clears his throat. “Some other time.” _

_ It’s not the first time Peter asks Balthazar to go out to town with him, but every time he does, there’s always some test Balthazar has to study for or some essay he needs to write. And, as the weeks turn into months, Peter stops asking. _

_ This is what their flat is like, several months into living at Wellington: Ben misses home and Beatrice with a fierceness no one, not even Balthazar, can ease. Freddie’s books and weapons are easy to leave out of his sight, but not of his memory. Peter isn’t in the flat enough to make much of a difference. The few times they are all together, the talk almost always turns to magic, Ben saying something inadvertently offensive about Freddie’s livelihood, Freddie getting offended, Peter rolling his eyes and asserting that, for the ten millionth time, “magic doesn’t exist,” and Balthazar pretending the words don’t crack at his glass heart. _

_ And there’s fighting. _

_ It’s small things, and at least for a while it never becomes loud or threatening. It’s Freddie accusing Peter of never doing his chores, and Peter snapping back that he has more important things to do with his time. It’s Ben asking Freddie tentatively to stop leaving her weapons at the dinner table, and Freddie exploding into a rant about how it’s her  _ **_livelihood_ ** _ , goddammit. It’s Peter not bothering to announce when he comes and goes with other people, and Ben and Freddie complaining about it when he’s not there. It’s Balthazar being complicit in all of it too, when he doesn’t speak up or do anything about it, because it’s not his place, because he’s too tired to let other people’s tensions drain at his energy in that moment, whatever excuse he can come up with that day. It’s endless, constant arguing about magic, and it always ends the same way - halfhearted promises to agree to disagree, sullen silence - but as the weeks go by it gets steadily worse, until Balthazar’s heart pounds mercilessly and the tension sticks his lungs like molasses. _

_ And Balthazar knows Peter’s rejection of magic is better than his opinions at the end of last year - for himself, and for Peter, too. But half the time, nights when Peter’s statements spin around his head, nights when his reality in Wellington doesn’t feel quite tangible and when he remembers home all too well, he can hardly decide whether Peter saying he doesn’t exist or saying he’s a danger to humanity is worse. And of course he has to face it from Freddie, too, but Freddie grew up in a family that has filled her head with poisonous ideas since youth. To a certain extent, he can’t blame her. He has faced years of prejudice from humans, and he is certain none of it will ever sting as much as when it comes from a boy who used to be the exception. _

_ The thing about the flat, Balthazar thinks, is that they were always meant to brush against each other like this, in small and cutting ways. They have always been four puzzle pieces that never quite fit together, even from their first meeting, and as the days turn into weeks and bruises turn into sores their edges are becoming rougher and harder. Maybe if you put any four people into a house, they’d turn into this too. Maybe this is simply an inevitability, like any other in Balthazar’s life. _

_ So living with humans, Balthazar learns, is harder than school and harder than most things he’s had to deal with in his lifetime. But at least it’s manageable. It’s not quite what he imagined, but better to live with this - all the anger and the frustration, all the love and the joy in the smallest things - than to live with nothing at all. _

_ Then he starts catching Ben and Freddie whispering about something with one of her magic books opened up between them and pointing at Peter’s room, and when he approaches, they stop talking and look up at him with some mixture of guilt and relief that never fails to leave him wondering; Peter stops waiting for a barb from Freddie to make it clear to the rest of them what he thinks about magic and reality, and the fights last so long before Balthazar can do anything to intervene that he’s always left feeling like nothing; one morning, he gets a call from Rosa that is long enough to make him miss his history lecture, and it leaves him trembling with his own silence.  _

_ The cracks start to get just a little bigger. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An announcement - we will be going on hiatus for the next few weeks, due to a combination of working on femslash week (starting this Monday for those who might be interested), working on this fic, and life things. This does not mean we will be inactive, however. Keep an eye out next week for something special from us, and if all goes well updates will resume the weekend of March 11. Thanks for sticking with us!
> 
> And here is a [grade A edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142535450398) by the wonderful [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back, back again, olwy's back, tell a friend.
> 
> Hopefully our absence has not been too hard for you, but we're here, now. Please enjoy the angst.

Freddie is punished for a rule Balthazar breaks every single moment of his existence, and life goes on.

Well, it goes on as well as it can, with Balthazar’s impending decision hanging over his neck and Freddie’s newfound interest in the fae. Balthazar stays away from the flat when he can, but life continues without him. Peter raves about Faustus, and it seems like his whole body is smiling. Ben retreats more into skype sessions with Bea and ignores his schoolwork like it’s his job. Freddie frequents Boyet’s and doesn’t get caught with any other prohibited items.

The routine continues, until one evening after a day full of classes, feeling as though he may collapse the moment he reaches his room, he walks in to all the occupants of the flat on the couch. He can feel the tension in the air, snaking around them and constricting, and  _ he just wants to sleep _ .

“Stan,” says Freddie. “I texted you—”

“Yeah, phone’s flat,” Balthazar supplies, holding up the offending item. “Is something…”

Peter scowls. “ _ Someone _ ,” he says, “has been breaking the rules since they were written.”

Balthazar’s heart stops for one terrifying moment.

“Guys,” Ben sighs, and seems to sink in on himself, looking smaller than the other flatmates despite his height. “Can we just get on with it?”

“What,” Freddie scoffs, high and indignant. “You put  _ so much _ pomp and ceremony into my punishment. ‘Freddie Kingston has stood against the very rules she swore to uphold, and for that we must bring her to justice.’” She stands on the couch at this, brandishing her fist at the air, and Balthazar buries a laugh, despite his confusion and the fear pumping through his veins, at her all-too-accurate mimicry of the tallest flatmate.

“That’s a little hypocritical of you,” Peter agrees. “Freddie could hear you from the  _ kitchen _ , Ben.”

“I didn’t think anyone was home.”

Balthazar sets his bag down, finally, and contemplates sitting down next to it. It won’t be comfortable, of course, but it’s better than just standing. “What happened?” he asks, before the conversation devolves any further, and rubs his eyes.

“ _ Ben _ ,” says Freddie, “broke a rule.”

“Rule one, specifically,” Peter adds. “Which, by the way, is the only rule that’s ever been broken? Does anyone else think that might be a bit strange?”

“Oh,” Balthazar says. He feels like maybe he should have more to say about it, about the ability of the non-magical beings to break rules indiscriminately and without thought, while he has to measure every movement and word against the possibility of discovery. He feels like maybe he should be angry; instead, he’s just… empty. All his energy has been scraped out and given away, leaving barely enough for him to keep on his own two feet.

“I was just talking to Bea,” Ben mutters.

“About subjects we very clearly banned because they were undermining the flat! For-- for weeks, maybe more!” Freddie sits down again, scowling. “You can’t protest this, Ben. We’re figuring out your punishment, and then you’ll take it without complaint. That’s the way this works.”

Ben’s eyebrows draw together. He nods. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah, sure, okay. I’m gonna take it. Hit me with the punishment.”

Peter turns to Balthazar. “Any ideas?”

Before he can think, Balthazar mutters, “Sleep?”

“What?” Peter’s eyes soften into something like pity, but Peter’s eyes shouldn’t be soft around him, not now. “God, Balth, when was the last time you slept?”

Balthazar doesn’t shrug. He doesn’t say,  _ last night I couldn’t sleep over the sound of my own decisions _ . He squints like he’s thinking, and says, “Recently.”

“Huh,” Freddie says. “Okay, how about we figure this out tomorrow.”

He can almost  _ feel _ their pity, but it’s better than standing in the middle of the room, watching the tensions grow and complicate, participating in a discussion he has no right or want to be a part of.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Tomorrow sounds okay.”

He walks to the kitchen for a glass of water. He lets the faucet run for a little while longer than it needs to, the sound of it, rushing down into an unknown blackness, oddly soothing. He’s shaken apart too many times in this kitchen, probably, and none of the others will ever know. That should probably make him feel better, the anonymity of his breakdowns. It doesn’t.

But tonight his hands do not shake when he turns off the faucet, and perhaps that should be some type of victory in itself.

Balthazar goes back to the living room, expecting the others to have gone off on their separate ways already. What he does not expect, then, is Peter sitting on the couch, and though he’s reading from a book, the look on his face tells Balthazar he’s waiting for something.

He remembers the last time he stumbled upon Peter waiting for something on this couch. His heart squeezes in his chest.

Peter glances up from his reading.  _ Faustus _ , Balthazar notes. “Hey, Balth, could I ask you a quick favor? Run some lines with me?” The questions come out a bit stilted. Balthazar shouldn’t be alarmed at that. The space between them, right now, is deliberate, and necessary.

He ought to sleep. He ought to rest and not think of the flat or choices or consequences for a long, long while.

“Okay,” Balthazar says, and takes his place next to Peter.

“Only for a little while,” Peter says as he hands Balthazar the book. Before Balthazar can say anything, Peter swings his legs over so that they rest on Balthazar’s lap. Balthazar wills himself not to tense. Things have been – not impossible, but hard between them, lately. Even so, this is how things used to be, and if there’s anything Balthazar knows they’re good at, it’s pretending they know how things used to be.

“That’s fine,” Balthazar says.

“I shouldn’t keep you up for too long. It’s just…” Peter runs a hand through his hair, abashedly. “You’re the only one I can trust around here not to make this unnecessarily difficult.”

Balthazar smiles a little, despite himself. He remembers the last time Peter tried to run lines with Ben, who’d spent the whole time gesturing wildly and cutting Peter off every few seconds about a particular turn of phrase executed wrongly or a certain tone of voice not conveyed right. Freddie, on the other hand, stuttered over her lines and had become properly flustered within minutes.

“Not like the standard is terribly high, in this flat,” Balthazar comments, flipping idly through the pages. Peter snorts a laugh, and despite everything that’s happened between them something that resembles joy bursts in Balthazar’s gut.

They go through lines for a little while, reading through a short passage Peter claims Costa thinks he hasn’t been emoting enough. Privately, Balthazar compares this time to the last time he’d seen Peter practice Faustus. Though the environment now is bound to be more casual than in a real rehearsal, he can’t help but notice how much more relaxed Peter seems. More confident. It’s even as if he’s enjoying himself, despite the revisions Costa made to include “more magic”. The last time, it seemed like Peter had just been going through motions. When Peter reads his lines now, there’s a practiced air to them, but it’s natural; it’s  _ him _ , all the times his voice rings out with strength and all the times he makes a mistake, altering lines without thinking or mixing up his words. The good and the bad parts all sound like him.

“You sound great,” Balthazar says when they’re done. “I’m looking forward to the performance.”

“You sound good too,” Peter says, flashing him a quick smile. Balthazar should be tired, more so than he was before. This was something he’d almost forgotten about talking to Peter, though, or even just being with him. He’d almost forgotten how easy it was, before he’d forced himself to make it hard.

“You’re just saying that,” Balthazar says, grinning. “Trying to get into my good graces. Buttering me up.”

“Why, Balthazar Jones, I would  _ never _ ,” Peter gasps, pressing a hand to his chest, but he breaks character at the last second, and laughter bursts past his lips.

“Yeah, yeah.” Balthazar closes the book and hands it back to Peter. “That’s what they all say.”

“I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about.”

“I’d say ‘it’s always the quiet ones’, but you’re not quiet at all.”

“Frankly, I should be saying that to  _ you _ .”

“Whoa, accusing me of things now, are you?” Balthazar holds his hands up, still smiling.

“Nothing you didn’t start yourself.”

It could be a statement that means something else entirely, but Peter is smiling openly, and Balthazar knows he’d never mean it like that, even if he fully knew what he was talking about. Balthazar smiles back, softly, and though he doesn’t answer, even though it’s been ages since it’s been like this, just like that things feel easy between them again. If Balthazar let himself, he’d wonder how he could have ever allowed it to be otherwise.

“I should go to bed,” Balthazar says eventually. He makes no move to push Peter’s legs off of him.

“Balthazar?”

“Yeah?”

He doesn’t look at Peter, either.

“You doing all right?”

Or answer.

“Have you eaten tonight?”

“Maybe.” The word slips out before he can stop himself. Peter’s concern, or gentle admonishment, or shocked irritation, are all things he can probably do without.

Peter doesn’t admonish him. He doesn’t say, “You should,” or, “Why not?” or “Balthazar, for fuck’s sake, take care of yourself.” He doesn’t even sigh.

What he does is swing himself off the couch and say, “I’ll make you a sandwich. It’ll be quick, promise, so you can get to sleep soon.”

And, of course, the way Peter actually reacts is the way Balthazar can deal with the least of all.

He rubs at his eyes. He fights down the gratitude, the sudden affection, the stupid sadness – none of which he deserves to feel – that rise up in his throat. He walks over to the table and sits carefully in a chair, and he’s not even upset that he can’t go to bed just yet. How can he be?

A few minutes later, Peter puts a plate in front of him. There’s avocado and lettuce and tomato on it, and it’s on Balthazar’s favorite bread, and he hadn’t even realized how hungry he’d been until a stupid boy who is more worried about him than he should be made him a stupid sandwich.

“Thanks,” he says, his throat tight.

Peter sits next to him and inclines his head. He doesn’t have to do that either, he could easily just go back to his room and leave Balthazar alone to his thoughts. Balthazar should know, by now, that Peter doesn’t much care about what he doesn’t have to do.

“I just…” Peter exhales, long and sharp. “I know it’s been – difficult, lately. School’s been kicking all our asses. But I want you to – we care about you, yeah? We just want you to be okay.”

“I am okay,” Balthazar says around a mouthful of the sandwich.

“Right.” Peter’s brow furrows, just slightly. “I’m s–“ He breaks off, clearing his throat. “That is to say, you’re not alone. I – we’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you really want. But you don’t have to be.”

He knows it’s something Peter would say, in any universe, to anyone he cares about, just as he knows it’s something he doesn’t really need to hear, or should. Even so, there’s nothing stopping his heart from pounding just a little bit faster.

“Yeah,” he says, trying desperately to keep the emotion out of his face, too tired to know if he’s succeeded. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Peter moves his hand, as if to reach out, then seems to think better of it and lets it fall to his side. He stands up and says, “Get lots of sleep tonight, yeah? You’ll be doing all of us a favor.”

“Are you trying to imply something there?” Balthazar teases, pretending to be offended.

Peter’s gaze softens again, just a little, and Balthazar wishes for half a second it would stop doing that.

“Not at all,” he says, and Balthazar knows, heart clenching briefly, that he means it.

And then he murmurs one last good night, and leaves the room.

Balthazar stares down at his half-eaten sandwich. He owes it to Peter, probably, to finish it, so he does. Then he stumbles to his room and collapses the moment he reaches his bed. He does not dream.

The next morning, Balthazar barely feels any better, but he makes his way out to the living room, anyway. He has class in a couple of hours, and he’s pretty sure the others do, too, so they’ll have to figure out the punishment.

“Great, you’re here,” Freddie says, holding a mug of coffee. “I’m just going to wake Peter and Ben.”

Balthazar nods, and takes a spot on arm of the couch, waiting. It isn’t long before the others stumble out, rubbing their eyes.

“Okay,” Peter says. “This is probably not much of a better idea than it was to do this last night, but who cares?”

“You can have your coffee after,” Freddie admonishes. “Come on, let’s get this done.”

Ben groans and collapses onto the couch. “Fine,” he says. “My punishment. What are you going to do to me?”

Peter sits next to him, almost on top of Balthazar’s feet. Neither of them try to move away. “We could pour slime over your head?” Ben tenses, scowling, and Freddie shrugs, glaring.

“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” Balthazar interjects, hating how the tension is already high so early, that he’s reached the point where he has to reach so far into himself to help alleviate it. “Slime for a conversation?”

Freddie scoffs, but the harsh line of her shoulders softens a little, and Ben relaxes back into the couch.. “More than one,” she says. “He mentioned having talked about it before, on their previous skype dates. But no; where would we even find it?”

“Gordon Ramsey treatment?” Peter offers. “With the bread and all that. I think Costa might be able to pull off a pretty accurate impression.”

Freddie scowls. “No outside input. Besides, we’re not looking to tear down any self-esteem.”

“Maybe just confiscate something?” Balthazar suggests.

“I’m not a three-year-old, Balth.”

“Sorry.”

“Okay,” Freddie says, pacing. “Dinner duty for a month?”

“I have late classes twice a week,” Ben protests.

Peter rolls his eyes. “Ben, you  _ hate _ those classes.”

“That doesn’t mean I can skip them!”

Balthazar closes his eyes and doesn’t say anything.

Freddie’s eyebrows are drawing increasingly close together. “We need  _ something _ . You can’t just get away with this, Ben.”

“It was just a conversation.” Ben groans again and leans back on the couch. “I’m just trying to figure out what to believe. I don’t have the privilege of solidified beliefs like you. Look, I was thinking about it last night—most of the conversations were technically not in earshot of the other flatmates. And you only heard a couple of seconds. So—“

“That’s bull, Ben.” Freddie’s mouth is drawn and tight, shoulders tense. She’s ready for a fight.

Balthazar keeps his eyes and mouth shut. He shouldn’t say anything, shouldn’t risk it.

“I just don’t think you’re being fair!” Ben says, looking for all the world like that’s only the beginning of what he’d like to say.

“I’m being perfectly fair! You’re the one trying to bend the rules to your advantage—”

“My advantage? I’m just saying that the rules don’t technically apply to this situation, not like they did with a  _ book _ on the subject,” Ben protests.

“I was already punished for that Ben,” Freddie says. “Which, may I remind you, obstructs my  _ job _ .”

“Come on, Freds,” Ben retorts. “You haven’t caught a magi-- one of them--in all the time we’ve known each other.”

Balthazar doesn’t think _ , she may soon _ .

“Well, that’s all part of the problem, isn’t it?” she says, and there is that  _ fear _ again, that tense set to her shoulders that implies future consequences and no control. She sighs. “Look, Ben, we punish you like you punished me, and it’s done.”

“It’s just not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair,” mutters Peter, nudging Balthazar’s leg and looking at him like _ , can you believe these two? _

“ _ The rules _ aren’t fair,” Freddie corrects.

“Um,” says Balthazar, regretting the word the moment he utters it. He’s already so tired, the sleep he’d had not nearly enough for this conversation. “Are you suggesting we just throw the rules out the window?” Will he even have enough energy for his classes, if he keeps this up?

Freddie considers it for a moment, tension bleeding out of her. It feels like maybe it’s Balthazar that’s soaking it up. He’s never thought about how it worked, before. Do all the arguments he stops turn full force on him? “I mean,” she says, then shakes her head. “No, no. We nearly killed each other over this stuff. As  _ unfair _ as it is, we need it.” She grimaces, as if the words cause her physical pain—which they might well have, given the fear that flashes over her face whenever she mentions her parents and her job.

A part of Balthazar is relieved, another tired and a little offended that his existence is still technically the most divisive element of the flat. He can’t quite make sense of the rest.

Peter’s nose scrunches. It would be adorable, if Balthazar wasn’t so tired and the situation wasn’t so tense. “It’s not like we’re really keeping the peace with them, though.”

They let that hang in the air for a few moments, then Freddie says, “Well, it’s better than it was. Now, Benedick’s punishment. We aren’t letting this die.”

“Ah, yes,” says Peter. “The punishment of Benedick Hobbes. What can we find that is fitting for such a  _ grave _ betrayal?”

The flat is silent for a moment, shocked, and Ben looks askance at Peter. “Was that a…”

Freddie smirks, jumping in with, “This is the last nail in your coffin, Ben.”

“Or will a punishment be  _ tomb _ much for you?” Balthazar adds.

“Oh god,” Ben says. “You’re all going to be the death of me.”

They laugh, and the tension recedes, and it’s nice, for a moment; as if they are the flat of the beginning of the year again, before everything began to fall apart. Well, fall apart further. It’s not as if they were ever really united. Maybe that’s why they’re so fractured now—they hadn’t fit properly in the first place, secrets and prejudices and past wrongs fitting into the spaces between them like pieces of different puzzles.

“But seriously,” says Freddie, and before anyone can jump in with another pun—really, Balthazar shouldn’t find mortality puns amusing, given his state, but he has to hide a grin, all the same—she continues, “We need a punishment.”

The flat falls into silence for a few minutes, then Peter says, "I guess ban something, like Balth suggested?”

“I’m not a toddler,” he protests again.

“No, no,” Freddie agrees. “I like this idea. How about no talking to Bea for a week?”

“No!” Ben says. “That’s not fair.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s okay to mess with his relationship,” Balthazar adds.

“Yeah, no,” Peter agrees. “Maybe Skype?”

“Guys,” Ben protests. “I have a Skype date with Bea  _ tonight _ .”

“You have one every night,” Freddie says, waving off his protest. “One week without Skype. All in favour?”

Balthazar shrugs, because it’s arguably better than anything else they’ve come up with, and because Ben does deserve  _ some _ kind of punishment. “Sure.”

“Great,” Peter says. “We’ll be watching, Ben.”

Ben groans. “Bea won’t be happy,” he sighs. “Long distance is hard enough with Skype.”

“One week,” stresses Freddie. “Might I remind you what  _ my  _ punishment was?”

“I’d take that over mine.”

“Too bad.”

Peter checks his phone. “Okay, I have class in, like, twenty minutes, so I’m off. Sorry Ben.”

Ben sighs. “Yeah, whatever.”

The room starts to empty, Freddie and Peter gathering their books frantically, and Balthazar lets himself take his time. He doesn’t have class for another two hours, so he can afford to laze around, just a little, let himself rest. He hasn’t been doing that much, lately, and he knows any of his friends would pull him up on it, if he let them notice, if he stopped long enough for them to really look at him.

“Hey,” Ben says. “Are you okay?”

Balthazar turns to look at him. Ben is morosely texting Beatrice, fingers glued to the phone. “I’m not the one who was punished,” he says, which isn’t an answer.

“Yeah, well…” Ben sighs. “You weren’t the one who broke the rules, either.”

Balthazar almost wants to laugh. If only they knew the extent to which Balthazar breaks the rules, every breath a clear defiance of the damning words. “Yeah.”

Ben shakes his head. “Anyways, Balthy, I have class. See you when I see you.”

“Yeah, see you,” Balth says, and watches Ben leave.

Sighing, he goes to his room to get his books. The flat is empty and almost unwelcoming, and he knows that it’s he who has made it so.

It hurts, like every step away from them is stretching at the ties they have to his heart, but every step frays the ties further, and, one day, they may not even be attached at all.

Rosa calls Balthazar as he’s walking to one of his classes—history, with Peter, even though he only sits next to him and leaves without more than the usual pleasantries—and he stops where he is, drawing off to the side so that he doesn’t impede the flow of students.

He picks up. “Hey, Rosa.”

“Hey,” she sounds fond, a little tired. “I thought I might check up on you.”

Balthazar starts walking toward one of the benches scattered throughout campus. He can afford to miss one class, surely, especially since he may never get his degree, anyway. “I’m okay,” he says, and knows she won’t fall for his lie.

“Really. Are you sleeping? Going to uni?”

“At uni, now.” He doesn’t answer the other questions, can’t find the words to rationalise the truth of it, even to himself.

“Balth…”

“Was there anything else you wanted?”

Rosa sighs, and his heart clenches in panic. Balthazar hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’s just been so  _ tired _ lately, and words have a habit of slipping out before he can think through them.

“I’m sorry,” he amends, and his voice comes out hardly more than a whisper. “How are you?”

Rosa huffs, sounding almost amused. “I’m fine,” she replies. “There are some gorgeous places I wanted to visit one last time. The sunset over the Alps is as breathtaking as ever. I’m fine. I just—there are some beings I’ve met over the years that I’m loath to leave.”

Balthazar nods, then realises she wouldn’t be able to see it. “Yeah,” he agrees, and his voice is tight and strained. “Yeah, I get that.”

“It’s strange,” she confesses. “Knowing I’ll never see them again.”

Balthazar thinks of his friends, all their life and their vitality and their mortality, and swallows. “It is.”

“I was thinking about it, and I thought—” Rosa hesitates. “I thought,  _ well, at least I have Balthazar _ .”

Balthazar breathes.

“And then,” his sister continues, and his throat is tense and sore, eyes burning. “I thought about how much it hurts to be losing my friends, and how I don’t even see them for decades, sometimes. I thought about how much worse it would be if I had been with them for a quarter of my life—to love them with all I had, only to let go for a cause that was never my own.”

“That would be rather difficult,” Balthazar says, and he isn’t sure the receiver even picks it up.

Rosa hums. “I know loss,” she tells him. “I know how to live through it, to live on. I can handle losing those I care about.”

Balthazar can hear what she doesn’t say, the quiet,  _ can you? _ He leaves the question unanswered, doesn’t whisper,  _ I don’t know _ .

“I would miss you,” she says. “But I would survive.”

Balthazar swallows through his heavy throat. “Rosa…” he sighs. “I get—thank you. But you know I can’t. There’s so many reasons, and I just— it’s not just about me.” The kingdom. His people. Rosa.

“Yes,” she agrees. “We both know that. It’s—it’s something to think on, at least.”

Balthazar has thought. He has wished, and ached with the force of it. Neither have helped; even if pixies did grant wishes, like the legends said, and even if he garnered enough favour to be given one, there is nothing anyone can do. His problems lie in love and loss and politics, and not even the strongest magic can find a way to cure all three.

“Anyway,” says Rosa, with a forced optimism that’s evident even through the phone and all the distance between them. “You should really get to class, Balth. I’ll be around in a couple of weeks or so. Tell mullet boy I said hi. And, maybe talk to someone? You shouldn’t keep it all bottled up, no matter what mother and father say. Boyet’s a good listener, or Kel.  Or your other friends-- the dryad and the witch.”

“Okay,” he agrees, voice shaking, just a little. “ Maybe.”

“I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

“See you then.”

Rosa hangs up, and he stares at the phone for a few moments, the display smearing across his vision. He blinks, brushes his hands under his eyes.

He has to go.

It doesn’t matter what Rosa says, he has to.

His jaw quivers and his throat burns, and Balthazar buries his face in his hands, just for a few minutes, just another stressed uni student worrying about finals or family or relationship difficulties. His shoulders don’t shake, but he rubs his eyes and  _ wishes _ .

After some time, someone settles down next to him on the bench, a little too close for a stranger.

“Hey, bro,” Peter says. “You missed class.”

Balthazar nods, not looking up. He’s not sure how much time has passed.

“It was a really fun class, too. Engaging. Interesting. Stimulating.”

He knows what Peter is trying to do; he’s trying to draw him into one of the word games that they used to play, bring back old times. It’s like the sandwich. He’s trying to gauge how Balthazar is doing without asking, and Balthazar needs to wait until he has more control over his vocal chords to answer.  _ Thought-provoking _ , he thinks, and remembers Rosa’s words, and does not speak.

Peter gives up and taps on the bench, off beat and out of time. “I can lend you my notes, later.”

“Thanks,” Balthazar says, and the word is croaky but steady. He looks up, doesn’t meet Peter’s eyes. He doesn’t think he could handle the pity in them. “Rosa says hi.”

“She was the one you were talking to?” Peter asks, and Balthazar nods, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

“Family stuff,” he says, and leaves it at that, because he knows Peter won’t ask about that, won’t dare delve into a subject that Balthazar has never tried to speak about.

“Ah,” hums Peter, and Balthazar knows he’s thinking about instruments hidden at Ursula’s, twigs in his hair, staying at Ben’s for reasons he’d never shared. “Should we be heading back to the flat?”

“We both have other classes,” he protests, but it’s weak.

Peter shrugs. “One missed class won’t kill either of us.”

Balthazar nods. He stands, doesn’t sway. “After you,” he says.

Peter grins, and it is soft and caring and knowing, and Balthazar’s heart breaks all over again, because the deadline is fast approaching, and then, he’ll never be able to see that smile again.

  
  


_ Balthazar, as it turns out, made it back to Auckland from the elven realms just in time for New Year’s. _

_ “We’re going to Pedro’s tomorrow, yeah?” Ben says on the couch, sometime in the middle of their fourth rewatch of “Marlowe in Love”. Balthazar doesn’t mind the rewatches, honestly. The movie is obviously something Ben loves a lot, and it’s always fascinated him to see what humans love, to try to figure out what it is they see in movies or books or places or people. Everyone’s reasons for everything, inevitably, are different. _

_ “For New Year’s?” Balthazar shifts on the couch. “Shit, is that really so soon?” _

_ “Why so surprised, Balthy?” Ben waggles his eyebrows at him. “Regretting missed opportunities already? 2014 isn’t even over yet, my good man.” _

_ None that he’d ever had to begin with, anyway. _

_ “Days just sort of blur together in the summer, you know?” Balthazar answers, as casually as he can. It’s not untrue, not for him. Whenever he’s been in the elven realms for a while, he sort of forgets the way time passes for humans, the way they count the days in strict numbers. _

_ “Right.” Ben hums thoughtfully. “You know Pedro said something about keeping it small this year? Rather out of character, isn’t it?” _

_ “Nah, I get it,” Balthazar says. He doubts Peter will forget what happened the last time they had a large party so soon. _

_ “I’m going to do my best to get shitfaced anyway,” Ben declares, and Balthazar almost wishes he could do the same. _

_ No one says anything when Ben and Balthazar show up to Pedro’s together, though it’s not like Balthazar has made it a secret that he’s had trouble with his family, and it’s not like anyone is pretending they don’t know. He can see it in the sympathy in Hero’s eyes, or a touch of his elbow from Ursula; he can feel it in the warmth of the hugs that people give him, Beatrice’s quick hug of his shoulders, Meg’s full-bodied compassion. _

_ Pedro hugs him too, careful and measured. He pulls away and lets his hands linger at Balthazar’s shoulders, just for a moment. _

_ “Try and have some fun tonight, yeah?” Pedro says seriously. The question, to Balthazar’s ears, sounds like it’s about something else entirely. _

_ “Of course,” Balthazar says, and he’s promising something else, too. _

_ He mostly stays away from the alcohol not because he can’t drink it, but because he doesn’t really feel like pretenses tonight. He’s not – happy, per se, but he’s not sad or anxious or anything else he could be feeling. He’s calm, and maybe he thinks it’s nice to have one night of relaxed thoughts to himself. That’s worth being honest about. _

_ For the rest of the night, he doesn’t talk that much to Pedro. He’s not sure if it’s intentional on either of their parts, or if the space between them is something engineered by circumstance, or if it’s some mix of both. All he knows is that whenever he thinks about saying something – anything – to Pedro, Pedro’s already preoccupied, and Balthazar never sees him the whole night without a cup in his hand. All he knows is that maybe space is what they need, right now, or at least what Pedro wants, which is just as important. _

_ There is one time he gets a drink for Pedro, daring not to wait for him to ask. His glass is empty, and it’s the least Balthazar can do to pour him his favorite beer. For good measure he pours himself a glass too, and ventures over to Pedro. Pedro takes his glass from Balthazar’s hand with a grateful smile, and pats the spot on the couch next to him. Balthazar doesn’t spare a thought before he sits down too. _

_ “Are you doing okay?” Pedro says quietly. It’s the most explicit acknowledgement of anything that’s been going on in Balthazar’s life lately, and somehow he’s not surprised it came from Pedro. _

_ The obvious, quickest answer, of course, is “I’m fine”. But because Pedro thought to ask, Pedro deserves some thought in Balthazar’s answer, so he leans his head back on the couch and genuinely thinks about the question. _

_ There is some part of him, still, that doesn’t believe that he’s left his homeland. That doesn’t think any of this is real. But it’s small compared to the part of him that legitimately enjoys living with Ben – living quietly with him, surprisingly, mostly spending their time watching Ben’s movies or playing video games, Ben leaving him alone in the guest room whenever Balthazar needs the space. It’s small compared to the part of him that thinks if living with the humans can be this easy, maybe everything will be okay after all. _

_ And he’s here in Pedro’s house, surrounded by people he cares about, and his heart beats quietly in his chest. _

_ “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think so.” _

_ “Good.” Pedro pauses. “I’m glad.” _

_ “Are  _ **_you_ ** _ good?” Balthazar hazards. _

_ Pedro cracks a grin. “Better than you.” _

_ Balthazar lets out a laugh. “Rude.” _

_ “I’m the greatest good you’re ever gonna get,” Pedro says, knocking their shoulders together. _

_ “Nah, my greatest good is definitely Ben,” Balthazar says with a sage nod. _

_ “Oh, wow, really?” Pedro clutches at his chest. “What is this betrayal? This treachery?” _

_ “You’re all good,” Balthazar says. “We’re all good.” _

_ Pedro looks around at all their friends, nodding thoughtfully. _

_ “We are the best,” he says emphatically, raising his glass as if he’s toasting the universe. “We’re the best thing this world’s ever going to see.” _

_ It’s such a human thing to say. If this was a movie it’d have been a little cheesy, and so would the smile on Pedro’s face now, but in real life cheesiness doesn’t get bad reviews, and Balthazar can’t help but smile too. _

_ After that, he sort of just lets himself float around the edge of the party. He drifts from conversation to conversation, or he just sits on the couch in the company of his thoughts. He doesn’t really mind it. The peripheral is his element. He likes finding the quiet spaces of parties to inhabit, the corners with interesting conversations and a certain lack of obligations. He likes parties, too, in general; just not in the same way that someone like Pedro might. _

_ It’s because he’s on the edge of things, of course, that he doesn’t notice about half an hour before midnight that Ben is nowhere to be found. _

_ Beatrice is on the couch between Meg and Hero, and of course she can’t be expected to be glued to Ben’s hip, though he had seen them just a few hours prior in the corner being exceedingly cuddly and sweet, so he knows there won’t be any trouble in that realm. The thing is, though, it’s pretty unlikely for Ben not to be in the center of things, and certainly not to be there at all. _

_ Balthazar gets up from where he’s sitting and decides to find him. _

_ It doesn’t take very long. The patio door is made of glass, so he can see a dark shadowy figure outside that vaguely resembles the size and shape of Ben. He debates with himself whether or not he should leave Ben to himself – if Balthazar was the one outside alone, more often than not he’d want it to stay that way – but Ben likes people, and talking, even if sometimes the talking turns into loud and ridiculous debates. Balthazar casts a glance around the room – he seems to be the only person who’s noticed – and makes his way to the patio. _

_ “Balthy Balthy Balth,” Ben says from where he’s sitting. Balthazar can tell, instantly, that Ben is drunk. _

_ Balthazar carefully sits down next to him. “Hi, Ben.” _

_ “Yes. Hello. Hi. Greetings. Something.” _

_ “You okay?” Balthazar says, uncertainly. “Just need some fresh air?” _

_ Ben sighs loudly. “Something like that.” _

_ “Should I…” _

_ “No, no, no, friend.” Ben holds up his hand adamantly. “Stay.” _

_ “Okay.” _

_ They’re uncharacteristically silent for a while. The moon is a crescent tonight, small but sharp against the black sky. Balthazar can’t look away from it. _

_ “Whadya think about 2015, Balthy-Balth?” Ben hums. “Do you think it’s gonna be a good year?” _

_ Balthazar shrugs. “It could be.” _

_ “I think it’s gonna be hard,” Ben says frankly. “I think uni’s gonna be hard as  _ **_fuck_ ** _.” _

_ Balthazar nods. “Do you think it’ll be worth it?” _

_ “Maybe. I dunno. Life is hard. And life is worth it, right?” _

_ “Sure.” _

_ “Right.” _

_ Balthazar thinks for a second. “What’s hard about life, Ben?” _

_ “Oh, I don’t know, Balthazar. Everything?” _

_ “Like what?” _

_ “It’s like – like…” Ben spreads his arms out, widely and haphazardly. “This year was bad, sometimes. Like, Hero’s party happened, and that was bad, and everything was bad, and no one was happy. And, like, I knew Hero would never do something like what they’d accused of her, regardless? So that wasn’t confusing, at least. But people wanted me to actually take sides, so I did, but when you take sides, not everyone’s going to be happy, you know? And everyone was mad at each other, and some people were mad at me, and I was mad too, and it was all around just bad. Just very, very bad.” _

_ Ben takes in a deep, long breath. _

_ “And then it turned out, actually, that everyone decided succubi don’t exist, which was cool, except some people were like, ‘that means nothing magical does’, and then some people were like, ‘fuck you, it’s still real even if you were shitty about it’, and, like – where do  _ **_I_ ** _ fit into that? You know?” _

_ That gives Balthazar some pause. Ben seems happy not to talk for a bit. _

_ “It’s okay not to have an opinion about it,” Balthazar says finally. “It’s just as valid.” _

_ “But like – “ Ben gesticulates widely. “People always want you to take sides. Sides make sense. To other people, at least. Not to me. Not about this.” _

_ “That’s okay,” Balthazar repeats. _

_ “But – “ Ben lets his arms fall. “I want to pick a side. I just don’t know which side is the better one. I don’t know who to listen to. I don’t know if I should listen. I don’t know, I don’t know.” _

_ Balthazar doesn’t know what to say. After all, it’s not like he himself doesn’t have an opinion. He doesn’t actually know if that’s the easiest thing, or the best thing. _

_ “Sometimes,” Ben says, “it feels like I can’t be myself without other people.” _

_ Balthazar feels, suddenly, that he is not the person Ben should be having this conversation with. Beatrice should be sitting in his place, maybe. Even Pedro would be a better choice. _

_ But Balthazar is here now, and he supposes there’s no changing that fact. _

_ “I think I get that,” Balthazar says slowly. “It’s just hard to know what to think when so many people are telling you what the best thoughts to have are.” _

_ Ben is silent. _

_ “It’s okay not to know, though, I think. There’s so many other things none of us know about. Why should this be any different?” _

_ Balthazar isn’t thinking about the existence of magic anymore. He’s thinking about himself, and his choices, and how he doesn’t know what world he’d pick if he had to forever, and how he doesn’t know if he ever will. He’s thinking about whether he actually believes it’s okay. _

_ That’s another thing no one knows. _

_ “Maybe,” Ben says, and is silent again. _

_ They miss midnight, just sitting out there, but after a while Ben stands up. “2015 can’t be complicated,” he says. “I won’t let it.” _

_ “Yeah?” Balthazar smiles, tentatively. “Any resolutions?” _

_ Ben taps his chin with a finger, loudly thinking. “I think this ought to be the year I figure things out,” he says. “Sort out my shit. Keep it simple.” _

_ Balthazar laughs. “Sorting out shit should be everyone’s resolution.” _

_ Ben shrugs. “That’s what people are always telling me, yeah? I need to sort my shit out. Far be it for me to disappoint them.” _

_ “Nothing wrong with taking things your own pace.” It’s a message to himself, too, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it. _

_ “Sure.” A pause. Then Ben grins, for real this time. “Wanna go back in now?” _

_ They rejoin the party, and no one says a word about their absence. Ben kisses Beatrice gently, and she does not complain about how late he is, or about the raucous shouts everyone lets out when he dips her. Balthazar cheers too, and smiles. Who knows what this year will bring?  The best any can do is hope for a better future, and maybe, for now, that will be enough. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psst, go read our [hersula werewolf fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6123211). It's set in this universe and we love it very much #shamelessplug.
> 
> Alternatively, here is a [superb edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142538195415/i-think-this-ought-to-be-the-year-i-figure-things) by the lovely [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a celebration of sorts for reaching 2,000 hits - thank you!!! - we've posted some bts stuff over on [tumblr](http://douchenuts.tumblr.com/post/141287506672/one-lifetime-with-you-chapter-13), including... a possible teaser?? Also, if anyone is interested, we are open to [non-spoilery] questions about anything related to this fic - just stop by our [tumblr](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com/ask) [inboxes](http://douchenuts.tumblr.com/ask) or leave something in the comments! =]

Balthazar glances at the calendar in the kitchen for the first time in weeks to check when Peter’s opening night is.

One more week before the play, which is good. Peter spent a good portion of their day off talking about the progress of the play, how good everyone is feeling about it, so it’s nice to know that’s coming up soon and he can finally show his appreciation for their hard work.

About a month after the play until Balthazar’s birthday. Which is bad.

He tears his eyes away from the offending date and lands, instead, on his own neat handwriting penciled in for every Saturday – _Astronomy Club._

“Oh,” Balthazar says out loud.

“What’s that, Balth?” Freddie calls from the other room. “Something the matter?”

“Nah, nah.” Balthazar goes into the main room and sits at the table, pulling his notebook in front of him. “Just realized I haven’t been to Astronomy Club in a while.”

“Yeah?” Freddie raises her eyebrows at Balthazar. “You going this weekend? I know you really enjoyed the meetings, last I talked to you about it.”

He thinks about it for a moment, thinks about the colorful lights and the people who understand – Paige and Chelsey and Kit, not separate entities from his flat but who in fact make living in it just a little easier. He thinks about things he hasn’t done in a long time and things he might not ever get to do again. He thinks about a place where he can stop thinking for a while and just be, and that’s okay.

“Yeah, why not?” He misses the music, and the feeling of freedom. Even if the last time he was there, freedom was something he’d decided to give up. “Kit and Paige and Chelsey are members, too. It’ll be good to catch up with them.”

“Kit’s in Astronomy Club?” Freddie visibly perks up. “Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, I think he’s mentioned it before, actually. Said something about how the stars are nicer to look at when you have someone to look at them with.”

He gets the sense that she’s thinking about trying to tag along, which for more reasons than he can fathom right now is a terrible idea.

“That is a very Kit thing to say,” Balthazar observes.

“The boy is an enigma,” Freddie says, fondly. Balthazar doesn’t immediately sense danger in those words, but he’s not sure he knows what to think about Freddie and Kit, anymore.

“I don’t know if Kit will be there this weekend, if you wanted to catch him there.” Balthazar glances down at his notes.

Freddie waves her hand dismissively. “Probably for the best. I see him plenty, and this weekend – “

She exhales sharply.

Balthazar looks up, not quite able to subdue his sudden concern. “You all right?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine, I just – “ Freddie shakes her head. Balthazar does not miss the tiny crease between her brows. “This weekend I need to call home.”

“Ah.” Is it worth pushing? “Parents must keep to a rather strict schedule.”

Freddie grimaces. “Yeah. It’s going to be super important, too. Stuff about responsibility and tuition money and doing my _job_ and – “

She breaks off again, sounding slightly hysterical.

“Oh.” Balthazar pauses. “I think I get it.”

Her gaze snaps toward him. “And what’s that?”

Balthazar tries for as gentle a smile as he can. This isn’t the easiest for him to talk about – family or Freddie’s job – but Freddie is his friend, despite all that, and he can try for his friends. “I know something about not wanting to disappoint your parents. And feeling like you’re doing it anyway.”

Freddie looks down. “I didn’t say anything about that.”

Balthazar shrugs. “Even so.” He sets aside his notes. “Ben didn’t tell you about my last few months in Auckland before we moved down here, did he?”

Freddie shakes her head silently.

He wonders, for a brief second, why he’s decided to be honest – or, at least, as honest as he can be in the human world – with a hunter, of all people. But he doesn’t have to think about it for long, because he knows, and has known for a long while, that he cannot hate someone who is almost as bound by the circumstances their family have laid out for them as himself. Not after he’s been there for Freddie’s muffled and shaking voice behind her closed doors on the weekends she calls her parents, or the messages on her phone that makes her mouth tighten, or moments like these, of vulnerability and fear he can recognize and understand, because he’s recognized and understood those feelings in himself.

“I had a falling out with my family. It’s – “ He chooses his words carefully, letting them roll around in his mouth before dropping them. “I should probably spare you the details, because it’s not pretty, but I guess, more or less, they just - expected something of me? Something that was… Really hard, for me. Basically, they wanted me to be, um, something that wasn’t really true to who I was.” He takes a deep breath, makes sure to amend properly, and to steer his rambling away from a direction he’s not sure he’s prepared to take. “At the time, anyway. And when I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do - well, I guess they just, you know, decided that wasn’t good enough.”

It’s a bit of a fiction, but it’s a story that has truth to it, and the truth for him has always been more important than the details.

“So… yeah. I had to stay with Ben, before we came down here. That’s, uh, that’s the long and short of it.”

“Oh,” Freddie says, muted. In a way, he’s glad she doesn’t apologize - what is he supposed to do with pity? - but he can recognize a shade of it in her voice, and for some inexplicable reason he appreciates that too, the unspoken nature of it.

Balthazar rubs at his eyes. “It’s hard, isn’t it? To find that balance between listening to your family - or, well, I guess just people who matter to you - and listening to yourself. I mean, they’re both important.”

“So important,” Freddie agrees emphatically. “And it’s impossible, sometimes, you know? Like – like the times when they don’t say the same things.”

Balthazar nods. “Yeah. I get that too.”

“I dunno, just – “ Freddie shakes her head, as if clearing her thoughts. “How do you _deal_ with something like that? How do you live with that?”

Balthazar almost wants to laugh. It’s a question he’s wanted to find the answer to for months, now, or years. For his whole life.

“I guess… I guess you just have to take it one day at a time,” he says, slowly. “And hope you don’t make choices you’ll regret.”

Regret is a word that should mean very little to an elf. For Balthazar, though, regret could mean just about everything.

Perhaps that is yet another reason why he’s resolved to go to the next magical gathering. Perhaps he doesn’t want to regret not going, when he still had the chance.

And, anyway, Balthazar remembers well what Rosa said, once upon a time, about saying a proper goodbye. If nothing else, maybe that’s something he can find, this weekend.

“That sounds way easier than it probably is,” Freddie says.

“Yeah,” he sighs, almost to himself. “But what other choice do we have?”

“My god,” Freddie says, and with that she’s brightened up again, gesturing wildly. “Stanley Balthazar Jones, world-weary cynic. Who would have known?”

He pushes his mouth into a smile. “Not me, if I’m going to be honest.”

“Seriously, did you hear yourself just now?” She raises her eyebrows. “ _Classic_ cynicism. Stan, you’re a natural.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s something that’d be really useful later in life,” Balthazar says, pulling his notes back in front of him.

“See? It just keeps on coming. Honestly, you appall me. Now, quiet, or I’m never going to get this stupid assignment done…”

The next few days pass by relatively peacefully. Not much flat drama, not that Balthazar is around enough to know that well. He gets his work done, and it’s quiet enough in the flat most of the time that it feels a bit easier to breathe.

By the time the gathering rolls around, he’s decided he knows the city well enough not to depend on his friends to find the place. He uses this as an excuse to walk around Wellington for a while, aimlessly. He hasn’t done that in a long time either, wandered around without a real destination in mind. It’s more peaceful than he remembered. The solitude lets him think. He hadn’t even realized he hasn’t spent any real time thinking lately – really, properly thinking, because worrying and stressing and counting the days that pass don’t count – until now.

He runs over the conversation he had with Freddie earlier that week, turning the words over carefully in his mind. He wills himself not to fret over the frightful implications of her talk about her job, wills himself not to linger too much on the tone of her voice when she spoke about Kit and things beyond her control, and instead thinks about what _he_ said, for once. Because when he’d told the story of his family troubles to Freddie, he hadn’t mentioned that he had resolved to go back and fix things with his family, to do what he had been taught was right before he can even remember. He hadn’t said that what he did back then, how he’d dealt with the situation, had been the wrong way of going about it, and that was something he regretted, and he would take it back if he could. He hadn’t at all spoken about what he’d decided is more important between his duties and himself on a day that feels like a long time ago.

What does that say about him? What does that say about how he really feels?

But how he really feels, Balthazar thinks fiercely, means nothing, not in the bigger picture of things. This has always been out of his control, and what he did last year has done nothing but delay the inevitable.

Hasn’t it?

He looks up, startled. Somehow, without thinking, he’d ended up at the magical gathering anyway. Beyond the gates of the garden, he can hear the music, and the faintest of laughter. Smiling to himself, he walks through the gates.

“Balthazar!”

He spins at the sudden sound of his name. Chelsey and Paige are grinning at him, waving him over.

“Balthazar, you should have told us you were coming!” Chelsey gasps when he approaches, pulling him into a hug. “You haven’t been in so long, we’re so glad to see you!”

He grins back. “Still got the element of surprise up my sleeve,” he says. “Keeping you on your toes and all that.”

“Oh, come here,” Paige says, wrapping his shoulders with her arm and squeezing briefly. “I hope that flat’s been treating you well.”

He shrugs, carefully. “As well as it can be, under the circumstances.”

The flat has been in a state of push and pull for months now, almost since the day they started living together. The push of tension and clashing heads and punishments and barely restrained arguments; the pull of quiet conversations and bad movies and thoughtfully made sandwiches and vulnerabilities. It can be exhausting, but he’s used to it by now, used to the extremes of emotion humans are capable of, and maybe it hasn’t been easy – not for someone like him, who feels tension so keenly it digs under his skin and chews away at his breath, who can quell it with a word if he’s strong enough even though he rarely is, least of all someone who technically isn’t even allowed to be in the flat if anyone knew – but at least they are learning, and at least they are living. Maybe that means something, though he can’t bring himself to guess what.

“Want some juice?” Chelsey says, holding up a glass filled with a bright pink liquid.

“What’s _that_?”

Chelsey squints at the glass. “I don’t actually know, to be honest.” Without hesitation, she downs the glass in three quick gulps, wiping at her mouth after. “You know, I’m still not really sure. It doesn’t appear to be alcoholic, though. Or poisonous.”

“Chelsey Long, I will kill you if you die of poisoning,” Paige says.

“It’s making my tummy feel all warm and stuff,” Chelsey supplies helpfully.

“ _Chels_!”

“I’m kidding! Mostly.”

Balthazar laughs. It feels good, and relieving somehow, to laugh without reservation. “How have you two been?” he asks. “I heard from Peter that Faustus is going well. Well, according to him, it’s ‘going to knock your fucking pants off’, but, you know. I’m, like, sixty percent sure he meant that metaphorically?”

“Hey, now,” Paige says sternly. “The pants-knocking bit is strictly confidential.”

“I suppose if there’s any director who would make it his mission to literally knock the audience’s pants off, it would be Costa,” Chelsey says thoughtfully.

“Peter’s right, though,” Paige says with a grin. “Faustus has been going great. You’re definitely coming to opening night, of course, and you’re definitely going to be simply blown away at how great we are.”

“I’m going to assume that that, too, is metaphorical,” Balthazar says.

Paige cocks an eyebrow. “How would _you_ know?”

“Right, classified and all that.” Balthazar smiles again. “Seriously, though, I’m glad I ran into you guys. I’ve been, uh, meaning to talk to you about something, actually. If you don’t mind.”

“Balthazar, how dare you insinuate that we would ever mind?” Paige declares, hitting him playfully on the arm.

“Is it that thing you decided not to tell us the last time you were at our place?” Chelsey offers.

He looks over at her, mildly surprised. “Uh, yeah, how’d you know?”

“You had this look on your face,” Chelsey says, and when she smiles this time it’s softer. It reminds him, with a small jolt, of a sunny afternoon months ago, Chelsey smiling up at the sun; the quietest he’d ever seen her. “It was all, like, resolved and brooding and stuff.”

“You sure you’re not the empath, here?” Paige says, planting a kiss on Chelsey’s forehead.

“Is there somewhere more private we can talk?” Balthazar suggests.

They settle for a low-hanging branch on a tree. Chelsey reaches up and seats herself with startling speed and grace. It takes Balthazar several tries to pull himself up – it’s been a long time since he went through any physical training, a large part of his education in the elven realms but not something he’d bothered to keep up with after he’d left – but Chelsey and Paige don’t laugh, just smile at him when he finally gets up there.

It really is noticeably quieter when you’re sitting in a tree. He glances over at Chelsey, who dares to lean her head on Paige’s shoulder without gripping the branch at all. He isn’t surprised to see she does not fall.

“I ask you for advice a lot,” he says.

“Oh, don’t even start, Balthazar,” Paige says. “We want to be here for you, and you best remember it.”

He fights back a smile. “Yes, well.” Breathes in deeply, once, twice. “My sister said I ought to talk to someone about this. I’ve been trying to figure it out all on my own, but it’s - just hard to do that, I think.”

Paige and Chelsey stay silent, waiting for him to continue. He is grateful, all of a sudden, for being given the space and time to speak.

“My family – my people – has given me a choice, is basically what’s happened,” he says. “So, like, you know about the retreats of the elven realms, yeah? I’m supposed to decide whether I go back home or not. By the time I’m of age, I mean. By my nineteenth birthday.” He pauses, chewing at his bottom lip. He can’t decide if this is easier or harder than he’d anticipated. He’s not sure what he feels right now at all. “If I don’t, my family loses the crown.”

“And if you do?” Paige prompts.

Balthazar sighs. “If I do, I lose my friends. My music. But that’s not as important as my family. My duty. My people. It’s the elven way.”

Paige and Chelsey are silent. It’s probably a lot to take in. Though, come to think of it, the confession itself didn’t felt heavy or important or of terrible significance at all. His pulse is steady, and so is his breath. It felt like he was just talking. He wonders, for a second, what that means.

“You left for a reason, didn’t you, Balthazar?” Chelsey says, after a while.

“Well, yeah, but it was just… y’know, temporary,” he says. “And it hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park, since I got here.”

“But if it wasn’t important to you,” Chelsey says, eyes sharp, “you would have stayed. Right?”

He purses his lips. “But…”

Paige reaches out and lays a hand on his shoulder. He can feel calm radiating from the warmth from her palm, and her touch is a comfort he hadn’t realized he needed. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t choked on his words, like he’d half-anticipated. Maybe that’s why he’s been able to say something, anything, at all. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget how much Paige understands, and how much of an effect her touch and her voice have on him, or on anyone. Her presence is so pervasive it’s easy to forget how hard she must work.

“Living among humans who don’t understand can’t be easy,” Paige murmurs. “But who’s really making you unhappy, Balthazar?”

That is yet another question he doesn’t have the answer to.

“I’m not unhappy,” he says, looking down at the ground.

Paige moves her hand away. “I’m sorry,” she says honestly.

“For what?”

She doesn’t answer, just levels him with a steady look. Then, abruptly, she leaps down and lands on her feet.

“I’m thirsty,” she says by way of explanation, smiling sheepishly, and walks away. Chelsey looks after her, contemplation in her eyes.

“She’s something,” Balthazar says.

“Yeah. I’ll miss her,” Chelsey answers. “When the time comes.”

“She’s only going to get a drink.”

“You know what I mean.”

Balthazar blinks. “You have as long as you want…”

Chelsey turns her gaze on Balthazar then, eyes blazing. “You think I won’t always wish for more days? You think it is easy to love a human?”

His breath catches in his throat.

Almost immediately the fire in her gaze dies down, and the corner of her mouth twitches up into a small, sympathetic smile. “Of course you don’t.”

He swallows, hard. “No.”

“People wonder why I bother, you know.” She bites her lip. “The other dryads? They wonder why I would waste my time on a human. I know it must be the same for you.”

He forces the image of a Rosa frowning with disapproval - hers has always hurt the most, more than anyone else in his family, even - away. “Yes.”

“But you know, right?” Her hands tighten into fists in her lap. “You know it could never, ever be a waste of your time.”

Does he? Does he regret the pain he’s forced himself through, this year and the last and all the years he’s had to withstand comments and actions and everything he could never fight back against? But as soon as he has the thought, he knows his answer.

Because, as much as they’ve been through, as much as they’ve hurt each other, as much as they’ve torn each other down they’ve spent just as much time, if not more, building each other back up again. He and everyone he knows. The terrible, violent moments are always paired with tender, beautiful ones. They all make his heart ache.

Can he say he’s ever felt the same, in his own home?

“No,” he says finally. “It couldn’t.”

Chelsey sighs, delicate and fluttering. “You asked me, once, if it bothered me that Paige was a human. And I believe in what I told you, with all of my heart. But you cannot for a second believe that I did not spend a great deal of time getting there. It took time, and it took effort. It was something I took great pains to build with her.”

Her voice is calm, and serious. She is so bright, so full of love and joy, that sometimes he forgets Chelsey is capable of this, too, a certain kind of strength that would put thunderstorms to shame.

“Do you know what I’m telling you, Balthazar?” Chelsey says, quietly. “You can’t love them without giving up a lot. Without giving up everything. And no one can decide for you if that’s worth it. But for me, it was. That ought to count for something, right?”

It counts for everything, he wants to tell her. To himself.

“Maybe,” he says.

They sit in the tree quietly, and Balthazar closes his eyes for a moment, counting his breaths.

“I think, mostly,” Chelsey says, “what Paige and I want you to know is that whatever you decide, no matter what, we support you.”

There’s nothing he can say to that, to the offering of unconditional support - has he ever in his life been promised such a thing? - so he just nods. Chelsey seems to find that satisfactory, and smiles a big and genuine smile.

“I could use some more questionable juice,” Chelsey says.

“So could I,” Balthazar says. He jumps down as carefully as he can.

Chelsey laughs as she lands next to him. “You didn’t even have any!”

“I live vicariously through your enjoyment,” Balthazar says, smiling, and they go off to find drinks. He does not wonder if the person making him unhappiest isn’t himself.

 

 

Balthazar returns to the flat feeling oddly peaceful.

Yes, he has things to think about, like Paige and Chelsey’s words and the dimension they’ve added to his decision, which he thought had already been made. It has been made. There’s no choice, really.

He can’t deny, though, that the points they made planted a seed of hope in his heart.

Letting himself in the door, Balthazar shuts it carefully, not daring to turn on a light, in case he wakes anyone. It’s one in the morning, far past the time any healthy human should be awake, and he’d rather not upset anyone.

That only works until he hits his shin on the cabinet, which, while not particularly painful, makes a racket, and Balthazar bites his lip and tiptoes the rest of the way to his room. Just as he’s about to go in, Peter’s door creaks open, and his head pokes out.

“You okay, bro?” he asks, in a whisper. His hair is wild and half-sticking up, eyes mostly closed, the imprint of a pillow on one side of his face. He yawns widely, and he’s just so adorable that Balthazar’s heart skips a beat.

“I’m fine,” he answers. “Astronomy club, you know.” Peter nods, and Balthazar’s not entirely sure he’ll even remember this conversation in the morning, so he asks, “Are you?”

Peter shrugs. “Better.” He yawns again.  “Wish you were around more, though. Miss you.”

Balthazar’s ribs constrict, curling around his heart and lungs. He flounders for words for a moment. “Yeah, I’ve been busy,” he manages after a few seconds of silence. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.” Peter rubs his eyes, nose scrunching, and Balthazar isn’t sure affection is supposed to hurt like this. “You’ll have time for us at some point, yeah? Can’t be busy forever.”

Except he will be busy forever—busy with duties, with ruling a kingdom he hardly knows and doesn’t want, not really. “Yeah…”

“Anyways,” Peter says. “Night. Morning. See you when we’re both actually awake, I guess.”

“See you,” Balthazar turns back toward his door, then pauses. “Peter,” he starts, and pauses again. He’s been honest recently, and he’s enjoyed that – not having to find new ways to layer lies between his friendships.

“Mhm?”

He doesn’t look at Peter, and his heart is in his throat, beating wildly. He considers saying it-- _I’m going back to my parents_ , and, _I’m not coming back to Auckland_. He can imagine Peter’s reaction, his fury and his fear. Peter’s always hated Balthazar’s relationship with his parents, at least what he knows of it. Balthazar won’t put that on him. “How is everyone?” he asks instead.

“They’re-- we’re okay. None of us are, like, perfectly fine, but we’re okay.” He feels Peter’s hand on his shoulder and twists to face him. “Balthazar, you know you need to put yourself first sometimes, don’t you?”

The very thought is so ridiculous that Balthazar almost laughs, but the earnest care in Peter’s eyes makes his heart ache. It’s almost strange, to see so many people care so much and so overtly.“I know,” he lies.

“Do you, though?”

There is a part of Balthazar that hates the way that Peter can always see right through him. He presses his lips together, looks down at their feet. Peter’s hand slides down from his shoulder, to his elbow, to his hand.

“Look, I know you—”

“You should go to bed,” he says, and Peter drops his hand. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“It’s fine, bro. I don’t have any early classes, anyway.”

Balthazar nods and heads into his room before he can say anything else, something that would make Peter worry even more than he already does, because that, more than anything, would hurt him. Balthazar knows that hurting him is inevitable—that hurting them all is—but it’s better that it happens when he’s gone. When there’s nothing they can do. When his presence is less likely to make it worse.

Balthazar sleeps, and he does not dream.

When he wakes, the house is silent. Balthazar lets himself get up slowly, not bothering with time constraints or quick decisions. He doesn’t need them, not here.

When he finally makes his way out to the living room, rubbing his eyes, hair flat, he’s still too tired to make out the form on the lounge. He makes himself a coffee in the kitchen and grabs an apple, and it’s not until he’s walking back to his room that he notices Ben.

“Hey,” he greets, taking a sip of coffee in the hopes that the action—futile though he knows it is—may have some effect on his awareness. It’s said that half the appeal of caffeine is psychosomatic, after all.

Ben nods, which is an odd thing to observe, when he’s lying upside down on the couch. “Hey, man.”

“Are you…?” Balthazar isn’t sure how to articulate his question. Are you okay? He’s had more than enough of that question lately, and he thinks Ben may have, too.

“Hanging upside down on the couch? Yes, indeed I am, Balthy.”

Balthazar nods, as if that had been his original intent. “Uh, why?”

Ben looks pensive for a moment. “Well,” he says, matter-of-fact. “I have an essay due in fourteen hours.”

“Did you finish it?” Balthazar asks, taking another sip.

“No.” Ben groans. “I hate it. It’s so simple and I hate it. I want to  talk to Bea about it, but we can’t Skype, and it’s so hard to talk to people over the phone. Like, how am I supposed to know what they’re feeling? And I miss Bea’s face, and my whole day feels weird without talking to her properly, and this stupid assignment won’t cooperate with my brain, and I hate it.”

“Oh.”

“It’s like—okay, it’s a paper on—god, who even cares what it’s on, really.” Ben rubs his face. “I don’t. I was supposed to start it five weeks ago, but then there was so much drama going on, and I was worrying about that, instead, and then it was so arbitrary, really, and so is all of this, and I hate it!”

“So why are you doing the class?” Balthazar asks.

Ben shrugs, then grimaces. He fumbles himself into an upright position, limbs flailing for a moment. “I had to,” he answers simply. “Because of—life. Expectations. I’m smart, so I’m supposed to learn. That’s how it works.”

Balthazar sets his apple down and takes the place on the couch beside Ben. “Didn’t you want to do it, though?”

Ben shrugs, shoulders barely moving from their slump. “Ish?” he tries, voice high in uncertainty. “Like, yeah, it seemed pretty interesting, but—I just don’t do well with assignments. With the deadlines and the analysis and the criteria. Any assessment. It just—it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about it. None of the students do, not really. What does it matter whether I can analyse the—I don’t know, the motivations and beliefs of a random soldier in the First World War when my friends are falling apart around me and I don’t even know what my motivations and beliefs are? It was interesting to learn, but I know it, now.” He takes a deep breath, then another. “And that, my dear Balth, is why I was upside down on the couch.”

“Don’t do it if you want to do it, then,” Balthazar says, and it’s so hypocritical, so impractical, he knows.

“Yeah,” Ben agrees. He sighs. “I suppose you have a point.”

Balthazar starts. He doesn’t ask, _is it that easy?_ He knows it isn’t. He knows it never could be. Ben makes it seem so simple, as if one could simply decide what they want to do and do it.

“It’s—” Ben frowns. “It’s something I was talking to Bea about, along with everything else. She’s very big on education through experience, and the flaws of university learning. You know that quote about fishes and trees?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Einstein, right?”

“Such a great mind—but, yes. It’s like, I’m the fish, you know? Trees aren’t meant for me.”

 _They’re meant for me,_ he doesn’t say.

“Water is, though. I don’t know what the water is, yet, but I’m going to find it.” Ben nods decisively, as if just figuring out something for himself.

“Good luck,” Balthazar manages.

Ben grabs his arm. “You need to, too.”

Balthazar looks down at his hands, confesses, “I don’t think I know how.”

“It’s just about doing what you love, right? About what makes you happy. There’s no point in making yourself miserable for other people. Other people can go fuck themselves, especially if they’re not being considerate of your feelings.” Ben is on a rant now, face bright and eyes wide. He’s happy.

Balthazar decides that this will be his memory of Ben, the one that he saves and savours. He has one for all of them, has been saving for a while. Ben on a rant. Freddie intent on a solution to a problem. Paige’s understanding, and Chelsey’s quiet, painful joy. The moments of peaceful silence between him and Ursula. Kit’s knowing grin. Hero’s understanding. Bea’s passion. Peter’s soft smile.

“You don’t have to self-flagellate for other people, you know? You matter, too. Your needs matter.”

Balthazar’s breath catches in his throat. He wishes, desperately, painfully, that his could ever matter over the fate of an entire people.

Ben stills, then turns to him. “Thank you,” he says. “I have to—I’ve got to write like hell tonight, oh my god.” He breathes, frowns. “I need to think about this. Thank you for listening, man.”

Balthazar doesn’t really think he helped that much; he was just there, after all, barely speaking, lost it his own thoughts. “Welcome,” he replies, anyway.

The lankier boy stands. “I’m going to talk to Bea. You should think about it, too. Maybe talk to Peter. Or one of your other friends. Have a lovely Sunday, Balthy!” He disappears into his room, then, and Balthazar sits on the couch, alone.

There are times, not so few and far between as they should be, that he wishes he were human. That his shoulders ache and burn under the weight of all his responsibilities. That he wishes his decisions were not ones he would have to deal with the consequences of for millennia. Ben has between seventy and a hundred years, maybe. No more noteworthy than the span of a few heartbeats, to an elf.

Any decision Balthazar makes will have repercussions for longer than humans will ever imagine. He can’t afford to make the wrong one, not now. He can’t afford to be selfish, no matter how terribly his heart aches at the thought.

 

 

_Halfway through his geography lesson, he looks up and catches sight of Rosa standing in the doorway._

_“Master, can I have a moment with the Prince?” Rosa says._

_Balthazar’s teacher sighs, resigned. With a wave of her hand, she releases Balthazar from the classroom._

_Rosa’s face doesn’t soften when he runs over to her, but he takes her hand and she doesn’t make him let go._

_“I didn’t mean to interrupt your lessons,” she says. “They are very important.”_

_Balthazar wrinkles his nose. “I don’t like geography.”_

_“Still important,” she admonishes, even as she squeezes his hand. “Though what I have to talk to you about is even more important. Walk with me, Balthazar?”_

_They go outside the palace onto the grounds. Rosa’s quite fond of a huge burbling fountain made of glass with a rim large enough to sit on, somewhere in the middle of the largest garden. This is where they’ve had many a conversation and this is where they go now. Rosa balances herself carefully on the fountain’s rim, and Balthazar dips both his hands in the cool water, marveling at the fish swimming beneath the surface._

_“It was your sixth birthday last week,” Rosa says. “I’m sorry I missed it.”_

_“It’s okay,” Balthazar says, moving his hands toward the fish as close as he dares, though they always dart away before he can touch them. “You’ve missed them before, I’m used to it.” He turns to her to give her a smile and show her that he’s okay with it – elves don’t smile a lot, or so he’s told, but he likes showing people he’s okay with things, and this is the only way he knows how – but falters, a little, when he sees the strange look that flickers over her face._

_She turns her eyes toward the water, mouth still._

_“You’re old enough to know some things about our people and our world now,” she says. “About your place among it.”_

_Balthazar closes his eyes and thinks about how cool the water is against his palms, how warm the sun is against the back of his neck. He decides he likes this a lot better than geography._

_“Family and duty and people,” he recites, like he’s supposed to._

_“Yes, but do you know what that **means**?”_

_“I’m six,” he points out._

_“In two years,” Rosa says, “you will begin training as a warrior. In five, you will be expected to renounce your toys and your hobbies for the law. In nine, you will be sent to the human world. And in thirteen years, you will inherit the crown.”_

_“I know,” he says, uncomfortably._

_“But do you **know**?”_

_He keeps his eyes squeezed shut. Easier to pretend he doesn’t see the world, he discovered years ago, than to know it exists._

_“I know it sounds like a long time from now, but it won’t be. Not for us.”_

_“Okay,” he says._

_“You must swear you will do what is right when the time comes,” Rosa says. “The crown ultimately is your choice. You always have a choice, about anything. But you also have duties. You have responsibilities.”_

_“Okay.”_

_Rosa sighs. “I told our parents you’d be too young to understand. Even nineteen is too young…”_

_“I understand,” Balthazar insists._

_Rosa presses her mouth into a thin line. “But do you grasp the full implications - the repercussions, if you don’t follow your duty? People will get hurt.” She breathes in, inhale as jagged as broken glass. “Or they’ll want to hurt you. Or, worst of all, they’ll hurt people you care about. You **must** get this, Balthazar. You must not make the same mistakes that - ”_

_She breathes in again, and does not finish her sentence._

_“That what?” he says, his voice small. He doesn’t admit that Rosa’s scaring him a little, can’t admit it because it might make her unhappier, and he doesn’t know a lot of things but he knows that has never been something he wants._

_She shakes her head, a tiny motion. “It does not matter. The things I speak of happened long before you were born. But your duty must come first. Do you get that? Do you swear - “_

_“I swear,” Balthazar says._

_Rosa stares at him, not visibly shocked though he can tell from her silence that she is. She nods once, slowly._

_“Good,” she says. He’s warm on the inside, like the sun has touched his heart, because he’s done something right, for once._

_“Still,” she murmurs, half to herself. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, do you, Balthazar?”_

_“It sounds easy enough,” he says. “It’s what I’m supposed to do, right?”_

_“Yes,” she says, and she smiles, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s what you’re supposed to do.”_

_She stands up then, and ruffles his hair. Other boys in the court don’t like it when people do that to them, but he doesn’t mind, really, not if Rosa does it. Her touch has always sent good feelings radiating through his body._

_“You ought to take the day off, and play in the garden,” she says. “I’ll persuade your teacher to let you off early.”_

_He smiles again, brightly this time. “Okay,” he says. She doesn’t need to tell him twice. With one last nod from her, he runs off. There’s a secret path in the garden he knows well, one that leads to a clearing no one else seems to know about, not that he’s seen anyway. In the middle of the clearing is a statue of a woman made of stone and covered in vines. He doesn’t know the name of the woman, but her hair flows down past her elbows – every woman he’s ever met in his life has always had her hair pinned close to her scalp – and she holds a lute in her hands, her fingers mid-strum. It’s the kind of image that is utterly alien to him, that he cannot imagine seeing ever seeing in real life. This clearing is his favorite place to play in._

_Balthazar enters the clearing and walks up to the statue, looking up at her face without shame. Here, no one can tell him he’s not allowed to look at beautiful things, and her face is the prettiest he’s ever seen._

_He’s always thought her eyes are the saddest, too. He’s always wondered how anyone who had the gift of music could be so sad._

_He sits at the base of the statue and leans his head back so that it rests against the cold stone. He pretends, for a moment, that he has a lute of his own, and that he knows how to play it. His fingers move over invisible wood, plucking at silent strings. He thinks, if he weren’t a prince, if he were allowed to do anything he wanted, he might want to play music. He’s only heard it a few times in his life, snatches of it behind closed doors and just around corners he’s never allowed to turn, but it’s still the most beautiful thing he knows._

_A bird chirps, somewhere near. It doesn’t sound right, though. It sounds weak. Hurt._

_Balthazar sweeps his gaze over the clearing and lands on a small bundle of feathers at the base of a tree. He crawls over. It’s a baby bird that’s fallen out of its nest._

_Without thinking, he cups the bird in his hands and cradles it to his chest. “I’ll take care of you,” he whispers to it. “You’ll be good as new in no time.”_

_He takes the bird home, and he takes care of it. What he doesn’t know is that it won’t be good forever, no matter how hard he tries. One day – maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years, but someday, because there is always a someday – it will fade away, like most other living things that don’t have magic running through their veins. He’ll know it eventually, but on a bright summer day, when he is six years old, all he thinks is that the bird deserves to live another day, all the days he’s capable of giving it. He knows he can do that much._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a [beautiful edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142540903194) by the awe-inspiring [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	14. Chapter 14 - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back! Apologies for our absence; there were some personal issues getting in the way of our update schedule.  
> This chapter is a two-parter, due to its length, and the next part will be posted sometime in the next few days.

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Today’s the day!!!!!!!!!!!! _

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Break a leg! _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Yay you passed the theater kid test :D _

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ There’s a theater kid test? Does this mean I get to be a theater kid now? _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ No, you just get to live another day _

**To: Paige Moth** **  
** _ Whoa there. _

**From: Paige Moth** **  
** _ :D _

On the day that  _ Faustus _ opens, Balthazar tries his best not to think too much.

It is a futile effort. It always is. He can’t stop himself from feeling the passage of time like a dull ache in his chest - today is, after all, one day closer to the day he has to know what is worth losing - any more than he can stop feeling shitty about any of it. If he thinks about it, there’s pain; if he doesn’t think about it, there’s guilt. He’s waging a war with his own thoughts, and it always feels like he is doomed to lose.

But today, it’s not about him. Today it’s about his friends, and celebrating their accomplishments, and supporting them with all that he has in his heart to give. He refuses to make it about him.

So he tries, mostly, to keep out of the way, and he texts Paige and Chelsey words of encouragement, and he makes sure not to bring up his problems when they have so much else to worry about today.

“Balth, have you seen my sweater?”

Balthazar looks up from his phone at Freddie, who is currently running in and out of the main room in a bit of a frenzy. “Uh, your red one? The one you’re wearing?”

“What? I am not – “ Freddie looks down at herself, then, and breaks off, cheeks flushed. “Not. A word.”

Balthazar holds his hands up. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Freddie pats him on the shoulder. “Good boy.”

“You know, Peter’s play isn’t for another few hours? Like, you have time?”

Freddie sighs loudly, blowing tendrils of hair out of her face. “Yes, but I’m meeting Kit for dinner before, and before that I have at least one and a half assignments I need to make sure I finish so I don’t have to feel guilty about not doing homework tonight because we have that afterparty thing Peter invited us to, which means I need to be prepared before everything starts so I don’t rush and it turns out I’m wearing mismatched socks or I only did my eyeliner on, like, one eye or something equally humiliating,” Freddie says, words spilling out like a flood. “I have principles, you know. Standards.” She makes a victorious noise, then, spotting her make-up bag on the table. She grabs it and dashes back into her room.

“That’s a long to-do list,” Balthazar calls after her.

“I know!”

“Forgetting to do your eyeliner wouldn’t be the end of the world! I’m wearing mismatched socks right now!”

“Shut it, Stan!”

“What are we telling Stan to shut?” Ben walks in from the other room, notebook under his arm. “Is it a door? Ooh, is it a trap?”

“What’s that for?” Balthazar asks, pointing toward the notebook.

“I’ll be taking very diligent notes on the play tonight,” Ben announces, with gravitas. “Someone ought to make sure this adaptation of  _ Faustus _ lives up to Marlowe’s pure genius. I still think Costa should have brought me on as a creative consultant, but as such an  _ egregious _ oversight was committed, my heavily detailed review of the opening night will have to do.”

Balthazar nods thoughtfully. “You’re, uh, you’re really into this.”

Ben looks almost offended. “It’s  _ Christopher Marlowe _ .”

“Of course, my bad.” Balthazar smiles, despite himself. As much difficulty as his flatmates have had living together this past year, when they decide to unite for a cause, he can’t deny that they commit to it wholeheartedly. At the very best of times, the few times his flatmates are totally in sync with one other, their home becomes the easiest place to live and to be. It loosens something under his ribcage to know that this time, the cause is Peter’s play. He can’t say exactly why that is, or he doesn’t want to, which basically amounts to the same thing. Either way, he’s more glad than he can express to see them supporting Peter.

_ Us _ , he amends. He’s supporting Peter, too.

Is that worth thinking about, the fact that he has to amend his own thoughts to include himself with the rest of his flat now? Should he even bother amending them?

“Hey, bro, you doing okay?”

Balthazar looks up, startled, at Peter standing over him, grinning and spinning his keys around his finger.

“Ah, the star of the show finally shows himself,” Ben says. “But you don’t even look the part!”

Peter glances down at himself, black jeans and shirt, and shrugs. “Costume’s at the theater,” he says. “Which I really ought to start heading to.”

“So soon? But I didn’t even get to lecture you on all the qualities you absolutely must portray in your performance of one of the greatest protagonists in drama of all time!”

“I’m sure Costa has me covered there,” Peter says, rolling his eyes.

“Actually, could I get a ride?” Balthazar asks. Peter glances over at him, raising a surprised eyebrow. “Paige asked me to come run some last minute music things with her. Not sure she actually needs the help, but, uh, I think I can probably at least provide emotional support?”

“You are pretty good at that, sometimes,” Peter says with an appraising nod.

“Only sometimes?” Balthazar says, keeping his voice light and pretending his traitorous heart doesn’t clench.

“A lot of the time.” Peter smiles, fleeting as it is. “All right, let’s do this.”

“Peter, if you fuck this up, I am going to fuck you up,” Ben calls after them as they leave the flat.

“Looking forward to it,” Peter yells back, though he’s smiling again. They walk down the stairs and climb into Peter’s pick-up truck. It’s been a while, but he’s surprised by the strange sense of missing that washes over him when he takes his seat. Peter used to give him rides a lot of the time, never said a word when he’d dropped him off at obscure locations like a gas station or a library and not at an actual house, and there are memories they’ve made in here, countless. Though by all rights he should be used to it by now, Balthazar doesn’t know if he will ever be used to the feelings and memories and experiences and everything else he’s capable of attaching to the most human of things.

“You know,” Peter says, starting the engine, “Costa’s call time is a bit ridiculous, but apparently he’s going to get us pizza? I guess I can’t complain about free dinner. Even if it is at four in the fucking afternoon.”

“Costa just wants to make sure you’re all, like, a hundred percent prepared.”

“Yeah, but does he really need  _ four hours  _ to do it?”

“A hundred twenty percent?” Balthazar suggests.

Peter snorts as he pulls onto the road. “Knowing Costa, that probably is actually the goal.”

“No, I wouldn’t be surprised either,” Balthazar says, laughing.

Peter hums under his breath. “So what all does Paige need? I think you’re right that she doesn’t need the help. I mean, like, I’m sure you’d be a great help to anyone on music, but her stuff is pretty great on its own.”

“I think she can get really nervous about her music?” Balthazar turns his head toward the window, toward the blurred street and houses that smear past. “I mean, she hasn’t ever actually said, so I don’t want to presume anything, but she puts a lot of herself into her songs. And, you know, sometimes that can be a bit terrifying, especially when your music is so personal.”

“Is it terrifying?” Peter clears his throat. “For you, I mean.”

_ Not when I play them for you, _ is Balthazar’s first thought. Which, in itself, is terrifying.

“Not in the same way, no,” Balthazar says. “I used to get really nervous before gigs, yeah. Still do, a little? But you get used to it. And I put myself into my songs, sure, but I’m also playing them because I want to share them. Like, they’re about me and my experiences, I guess, but I also write them for other people. So other people can find their own meanings, if they want to. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about me all the time.” He pauses, then, his mind catching up with his words. He’s only talking about his music, which is just about the only thing important to him he can be as open about as he wants, but it still feels like he’s said too much. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“Nah.” Peter waves his hand dismissively. “I like it when you ramble.”

Things are quiet, after that. It feels almost unfair that the silence could be so comfortable now, something they could slip into without even thinking or worrying. Balthazar, on some level, had known this was going to happen, just as he’d known he shouldn’t have let it. Now they’ve built themselves back up again like they always do, except this time, when they fall, as they inevitably must, the cracks from the impact will be permanent and irreparable. This time Balthazar might not be there to help fix them.

“Can I ask you something?”

Balthazar lets his gaze flicker toward Peter. “Hm?”

Peter hesitates, just for a moment. “Are you doing okay? Seriously.”

“Yeah.” Peter asked that question already, just some minutes ago. Balthazar refrains from pointing this out, or how easy it’s become to lie about it. “Why, uh… why do you ask?”

“I dunno.” Peter shakes his head. “I guess I’ve just… Been thinking a lot. And I worry.”

“You don’t have to,” Balthazar says. “Not about me.” Or he shouldn’t, anyway; same difference.

“Lord knows I’ve spent enough time not thinking about things I should have before it was too late,” Peter mutters.

Balthazar shifts in his seat, pulse picking up involuntarily. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean…” Peter sighs. “Sometimes I think about that song you wrote for Hero last year. ’Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.’”

“Yeah, I was rather proud of that one,” Balthazar says carefully. He doesn’t quite know where Peter is going with this. Or he knows too well, can see all the different paths this conversation can turn on, each more worrisome than the last. He can’t decide which is worse.

Peter shrugs. “I guess... Well, I guess I know what you mean about people finding their own meanings in your music, is all.”

“Oh.” A sense of vague unease settles over Balthazar, quiet and pervasive. This is a path that might stray close to the past - always a dangerous place to dance around, when it comes to the two of them - and, honestly, he’s not sure if either of them are ready for that. They’ve never been so bold before, not really. If they’ve ever talked about the painful things in the past, it still doesn’t take them long to leave them behind. Perhaps it’s because they know things tend to break, if they do. Perhaps they’re unwilling to find out what those things are.

“Last year…”

“Rule number one,” Balthazar says quietly. It’s meant to be a joke, mostly because technically the rule doesn’t apply outside the flat; he knows it sounds anything but.

Peter winces. Balthazar cannot miss it. “Right. I just – “ He makes a frustrated noise. “I know there’s not much point in thinking about -  _ that _ \- anymore, because it’s all resolved and done with, and Hero’s okay now and I’m okay with Beatrice and we’re all okay with each other, but…”

Balthazar can’t decide, really, if there is or isn’t a point to thinking about the past. He thinks about it too much and talks about it too little. That’s all he knows.

“If you need to talk about it…” he lets his voice trail off, unsure of what he was going to say in the first place.

“I just think about the fact that I thought this way about this one thing for so long, and I was so convinced I was right,” Peter says, voice twisted with frustration. “And then I went the complete opposite direction, and I was still convinced it was the right thing to do.”

Balthazar says nothing. How can he?

“That  _ line _ in your song, though…” Peter laughs to himself. “ _ Men were deceivers ever _ . I don’t know who you wrote it about, but I know when I first heard it, I couldn’t think of anything else but - but  _ me _ . How I’d fucked up. Fucked everything up.”

The thing is, Balthazar did write it about Peter. But there’s also no way he can admit that out loud.

“And I felt, at the time, that I’d deceived everyone else. About me. But most of all, it was like I’d deceived myself.” Peter exhales, harsh and ragged. “I didn’t know which was worse.”

Balthazar wants to tell him that he hadn’t, that he could never have. But he doesn’t even know if he himself believes it.

“You’re right,” he says instead. “This isn’t worth thinking about. It was a while ago, and things… They’re better now.”

_ Are they? _ Balthazar’s traitorous mind supplies. He doesn’t know how to ignore his own thoughts.

“I know. Or I don’t. Whatever.” Peter snorts. “It’s just been – Costa’s put so much of the M-word in the play. It’s hard not to think about it.”

“Well…” Balthazar hesitates. Is this his place? Is it ever his place, when it comes to Peter Donaldson? “Is that necessarily a bad thing?”

“I did bad things when I believed in it, Balthazar,” Peter says, unsmiling. “Better to forget.”

“But you did good things, too, back then,” Balthazar says. This, here, is almost certainly not his place. But surely Peter must know he is nothing less than human. “Is that worth forgetting too?”

“Like what.”

To answer that, of course, would mean revealing truths Balthazar has hidden too long to know how to release. But Peter’s voice is flat, devoid of question. Maybe Peter isn’t looking for an answer. Maybe he doesn’t think there is one.

“I’m a better person without it,” Peter says. “I can get things  _ right _ without it. And I have been. I don’t have to buy into something that affects or hurts anyone but me.”

“Really?” Balthazar asks before he can stop himself.

“You’re without it,” Peter says, tightening his grip around the wheel. “You’re fine.”

It’s such a blatant falsehood, all parts of that statement, that Balthazar has to restrain himself from laughing.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Balthazar allows, staring out the window.

Silence, for an aching moment.

“No,” Peter says finally. “I guess I don’t.”

More silence. It’s smothering.

They pull into the parking lot. Peter doesn’t get out of the car, so Balthazar doesn’t either.

“You said you’re okay,” Peter says.

“Yeah.”

“We’re okay now, aren’t we, Balthazar?”

“Yeah?”

“Then… can I ask you something else?”

He can’t stop his heart from pounding faster. “What?”

“That night, when we went out to town. You said I hurt people.”

Balthazar swallows hard. “I was angry. We both were.”

“I know, but…” Peter breathes out, and back in again. “That’s not the point.”

“So what’s the point?” Balthazar can’t bear to look at him.

“Did I hurt you, Balth?” Peter says quietly. “Is that why…”

_ Why you never commit? Why it was too hard to talk to me? Why you walked away? _

Balthazar doesn’t know what he wants to ask, doesn’t want to know. Or he just knows too damn well.

“Why what?” Balthazar asks, and it’s strange his voice doesn’t shake, because it feels like every other part of him does.

There’s a sharp knock on the window.

Peter and Balthazar both jump and turn their heads to the source of the noise. Costa is rapping insistently at the glass, voice loud enough to hear through the closed door. “Peter, I swear to god, if you are  _ late _ I will  _ personally  _ eviscerate you. And then I will necromance you back to life so you can perform the show tonight.”

Peter rolls down the window. “Costa, we’re ten minutes early.”

Costa huffs. “Well, how am I supposed to know what you’re going to do when you’re  _ still in your car _ – “

“Jesus, all right,” Peter mutters, casting one last glance at Balthazar before unbuckling his seatbelt. “Come on, bro.”

Balthazar gets out of the car and follows after Peter and Costa. They’ve started on some loud and rambling conversation - something about sword-fighting, and how feasible it is to learn a completely new choreography in the hours leading up to the play - but he’s barely listening. His thoughts are racing too fast, spinning around his head in familiar and infinite circles.

Peter thinks - Balthazar’s hands tremble in his pockets at the revelation - that he is the reason why Balthazar walked away, that day they played “Stay” and everything that came after. Peter thinks, after all this time, that it’s his fault. Peter thinks everything that happened, related to magic and everything else, is his fault. What he doesn’t understand is that it is the opposite; that it is not the fault of families or duties or magic or a human in over his head, but Balthazar’s.

The thought makes his stomach roil and twist, and, when the pizza arrives two minutes after they do and there is nothing vegan, he finds himself not caring.

“I’m so sorry, bro,” Peter insists, holding a slice guiltily. He still won’t quite meet Balthazar’s eyes, and it feels like they’ve just taken another step back. No matter what he does, it seems all he can do is hurt Peter. “Really, I should have thought.”

“It’s fine,” he replies. “I can ask Ben to pick up something on the way.” He won’t, not really, not with his stomach still clenched at the pain and guilt in Peter’s eyes, the knowledge that he could just  _ say something _ and fix it. “I’m not hungry, anyw—”

“No need,” Chelsey grins. Paige waves a paper bag in the air, from where she’s sitting next to Peter, a slice of pizza in her other hand. “I wasn’t sure if I was in the mood for pizza—”

“How could you not be in the mood for  _ pizza _ ?” Jaquie gasps.

“—so I picked up a few pastries from Boyet’s.” Chelsey takes the bag from Paige and hands it to Balthazar. “As it turns out, I  _ do _ feel like pizza, so it’s all yours.”

“I wouldn’t want to take your food,” he protests.

Paige scoffs. “She has  _ pizza _ ,” she says, as if that’s the be all and end all. It may be, for those who enjoy meat and cheese and all the animal-related products involved with it.

Balthazar takes the bag hesitantly. “I’m really not that—”

“Balth,” Chelsey says, eyes firm and caring. “Please take the food. It’s just biology; you need food for your cells to break down and convert into energy. No food, no energy, no help for Paige. And Paige would  _ really _ like your help.”

“Okay,” Balthazar doesn’t open it, then; he still doesn’t think he could stomach whatever it contains. Chelsey takes his acceptance graciously, settling back down with her pizza.

“So,” Costa says, after a few minutes. “I wanted to go around a circle and ask everyone what their favourite part about the production is and three things they could improve on in the future, but we are running on a  _ very _ tight schedule, here.”

Peter covers his laugh with a cough, and meets Balthazar’s eyes for a split second. “Four hours,” he mouths. Balthazar lets himself grin back.

“Finish your respective meals, and we shall begin practice,” Costa continues, and Peter looks away.

As it turns out, they probably need the four hours. Balthazar watches from his corner, half his attention on Paige’s music, the other half on the acting. They’re all nervous, twitchy, tension rising in their shoulders as Costa’s instructions grow louder.

“No, Peter, you have to  _ flow _ with the magic. It’s pulling you toward Helen—dance around her.  _ Dance _ .”

Jaquie looks like she’s holding back a snicker, despite the same tension sitting heavily on her. “Come on, Pete,” she says. “Interpretive dance, remember? If I don’t get to talk, you have to do the best dancing you can.”

“To the beat of the music,” Costa adds. “Remember, the music is  _ magic _ . The magic is pulling you. Dance to the magic.”

Each time Costa says that word, Peter’s shoulder’s draw together, lips pressing into a tight line. “Right,” he says. Balthazar turns back to Paige.

“Um, is it normally this…”

Paige shakes her head. “No, this is one of our worse days,” she confesses. “It’s been really good recently. I think we’re all just nervous.”

Balthazar looks back at Peter, at his reaction to the word “magic”. He thinks of the conversation in the car. “it’s partially my fault,” he says. “Pete and I…”

Paige frowns. “Not everything is your fault,” she chides. “Balth—”

“Okay, from the top!” Costa calls. “This time is going to be perfect!”

Paige sends Balthazar a regretful grimace and turns back to her guitar. There really isn’t that much he can help with—small suggestions, here and there; a reassuring smile at parts she seems most hesitant on.

The practice goes well, everyone coming in at their cues. Costa’s movements become softer, less sharp. His smile widens. Jaquie dances well, despite the disgruntlement Balthazar knows she has at her lack of speaking parts. Chelsey smiles wide and pretends to be a magical creature that she is not, and the trees outside sway with her. Paige loses herself in her music. Peter—

Peter’s movements grow jerky. He acts well, as he always does; to an unpractised eye, he’s slipped into the role with ease. To Balthazar, his distress is near palpable. By the time the first run-through is over, Balthazar finds himself wound just as tightly, tense with worry.

It’s his fault.

Peter flops down next to him, hair falling into his eyes, the copious amounts of hair gel he’d put in sweated out.

“You smell disgusting,” Balthazar says, trying and failing to hide his smile. Peter had chosen to sit next to him, despite everything.

Peter huffs and tries to blow his hair out of his eyes. “Thanks, bro. Ugh, I hate dancing,” he mutters, and there’s a part of Balthazar that wants to gather him into his side, press a kiss to his sweaty forehead.

“You love acting, though,” Balthazar points out.

Peter sighs. “Yeah.”

Balthazar smiles. They fall into silence, and it is a comfortable silence; he’s missed that. After everything—even after their earlier conversation—he and Peter can sit together and just enjoy each other’s company. As it goes on, though, he can’t help but ask, “Are you okay?” The peace shatters.

Peter laughs, sharp, disbelieving, a little bitter. There is so much Balthazar loves about Peter, but he hates that sound. “Yeah,” he says, and Balthazar remembers their earlier conversation.

_ You’re lying _ , he doesn’t say, because it would mean admitting that he was, too. “Okay,” he sighs instead. He wants to force a smile, fall back into the earlier silence of just a few minutes previous.

Jaquie appears next to them, water bottles in hand. “You’ll probably need this before the next run-through, Pete,” she says, and throws him one. “Balthazar?”

He nods. “Sure, thanks.”

Handing him it, she settles next to him. “What do you think of the play?”

“It’s great,” he answers honestly. “Paige is doing really well with the music—”

“That’s all Balth, here, cares about,” Peter jokes.

Balthazar nudges him with his shoulder. “You’re doing well, too, Jaquie.” The fear in her eyes lessens, just slightly.

She smiles. “Thanks.” Her grin turns mischievous. “Hey, how are you sitting next to that asshole? He smells rank from here.”

Peter gasps, mock offended, before Balthazar can answer. “You dance just as much as I do. Are you telling me you just don’t sweat?”

“I,” sniffs Jaquie, “am intelligent enough to remember deodorant.”

“Huh,” he says. “Yeah, that probably would have been a good idea. Can I…?”

She groans. “But it’s all the way over  _ there _ .” Jaquie gestures widely to the other side of the room. “If you go get it, you can have it.”

“ _ Fine _ .” Peter stands, stretches. “You are cruel and heartless. Watch out for her, bro; she’ll act all nice to get on your good side, and then turn around and  _ betray you _ .”

“I’m sharing my deodorant with you!” she calls after him, laughing.

Balthazar tries to fight back a smile as he watches Peter pad to the other side of the room and get caught in a conversation with Chelsey, Paige, and Costa. As he looks away, he notices Jaquie’s eyes on him. She doesn’t look away when he meets them.

“He really cares about you,” she says.

Balthazar nods. The wooden floor is cool and firm when he presses his hand into it.

“He smiles more around you than he does around anyone else.” Jaquie pauses, takes a sip of water. “He frowns around you more, too. Look, I’m not trying to give you, like, a shovel talk here, or anything. But—we bartend together, okay? And we get drunk together sometimes, too. He has so much weight on his shoulders—all his friends, his brother, the shit with the magic, and you.” She stops again, huffs. “I don’t even know where I’m going with this. Just, whatever’s happening with you two is making it worse, and it hurts, as one of his best friends, to see him hurting.”

Balthazar’s throat is thick and heavy. “I know,” he says, the words scraping through his dry mouth. He plays with the cap of the water bottle, the edge of it digging into his fingers.

Jaquie nods. “Good. I’m glad we cleared that up.”

He looks across at Peter, still talking to the others. “Are you two…?” he begins, then stops. It’s none of his business, really, except in that it provides the tangible possibility of Peter moving on, if Balthazar leaves.

“Nah,” Jaquie says. “I mean, we slept together once or twice, but it wasn’t anything serious, or romantic. We’re friends; us bi kids need to stick together, you know?”

Balthazar remembers how it was when he first figured out his identity, when others like him were no more than statistics; he remembers Ursula beginning to identify as ace, the joy and hope and belonging he’d felt. He nods. “Yeah, fair.”

“I’m glad we had this talk,” Jaquie says. They sit for a moment, silent, then, “Hey, want to hear something cool I learnt in class this week?”

“Sure,” he shrugs, and she grins widely.

“Well,” she begins, and he’s certain it’s going to be something engaging and interesting, because that’s the sort of person Jaquie is, but the shouting starts before she can complete her sentence.

“Oh, come on,” Peter is saying. “That’s absolutely ridiculous, Costa.”

The director in question is on his feet, balancing on his toes in an apparent attempt to tower over his actor. “It absolutely is not,” he gasps. “That is slanderous of you, Peter Donaldson.”

“I can’t just add lines two hours before the show,” Peter protests.

“Oh, god,” groans Jaquie quietly.

Balthazar feels the tension curled around the room thickening, twisting, darkening. He should say something. He should fix it.

He’s just so tired of it all.

“Yes, you can,” Costa insists. “You can, because I am your director, and you do as I tell you.”

“I’m not your fucking puppet. Don’t I have any artistic liberties within my own performance?”

Costa sighs, rubs his nose. Balthazar really should do something; he shouldn’t just sit here, frozen. He should move. He should speak up. “Look, Peter, I know you wouldn’t be acting like this if the lines weren’t about magic.”

The entire room stills, suspended, and Balthazar could not speak up if he wanted to.

“What?” Peter asks, voice low and dangerous.

“I understand,” Costa continues, apparently oblivious to his obvious misstep. “I don’t know what happened, but it’s obvious you have some deep-rooted issues with magic.”

“I don’t.”

“You react every time you hear the word, and you’ve made your opinions entirely clear in the past,” Costa points out. “The point is, you’re pinning all of your issues on magic, and that is getting in the way of my performance. It is ruining my play. And it’s an extraordinarily unhealthy coping mechanism,” he adds, as if as an afterthought.

Peter flinches back like he’s been slapped. There is a part of Balthazar that exults in Costa’s words, in everything that has needed to be said for a year and never was. Just as strong is his urge to comfort Peter, to protect him.

He should say something.

“I’m not—I don’t need coping mechanisms, let alone unhealthy ones,” Peter insists. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” 

Peter snorts. “I’m pretty sure  _ I’m _ the judge of my own issues, Costa. Now can we  _ please _ just get on with this?”

“Not until we resolve this!” Costa turns on his heel, arms crossed. “Do we have time for some team bonding?”

The questions seems rhetorical, but Paige calls out, “We have about an hour and a half.”

Costa grimaces. “Not enough. Damn.” He turns back to Peter. “We can simply talk it out, if you wish? Get to the root of the problem, expand from there?”

“Fuck no,” Peter growls. “I’m not going to-- my issues have no bearing on my performance.” His jaw clenches: a clear warning.  _ Leave it alone _ .

Costa does not.

“But they  _ do _ !” he insists. “Your reluctance to engage with magic has resulted in a  _ huge _ disconnect between yourself and your character.”

“I play Faustus well,” snaps Peter, eyes wide and affronted. “Are you insinuating that I’m not playing him properly?  _ An hour and a half before we perform _ ?”

“No, no! Peter,” Costa says, looking like a disappointed mother, “you know you follow my direction perfectly. You just don’t-- you don’t  _ fill _ the character. Only parts of you are playing him; you need to pour  _ all _ of yourself into Faustus.”

“You cannot honestly be bringing this to me on opening night,” Peter scoffs. “What the hell, Costa.”

Costa shakes his head. “This is no way to treat your director, Peter.”

“I’m not on your fucking payroll.”

“You are in my production, though,” he counters. “And  _ by god  _ this performance is going to go smoothly, because everyone here has poured their hearts and souls into it-- excepting Balthazar, but his efforts are appreciated, nonetheless. You will not mess this up.”

Peter stands, silent, eyes wide and wild, caught and poised to escape. He blinks once, then twice, then looks at the ground. “I always mess things up,” he says, and adds a half-hearted laugh.

Balthazar’s heart aches and burns and crashes in his chest. He forces himself to swallow through his dry throat, to look away. Finding that he can’t bear to not see the situation unfold, he looks back up.

“Maybe,” Costa nods. “Maybe that’s true. But it’s okay. I forgive you.”

Before anyone can react, he pulls Peter into a hug. Balthazar watches the line of Peter’s shoulders tense, then relax. His heart beats thrice, painful and fluttering against his ribs.

“W-what?” he asks, voice strained. Balthazar can’t see Peter’s face, but there is something lost in his words, something heartwrenching.

“I don’t know what happened,” Costa says. “But I forgive you for bringing it into my play.”

Those are the words Balthazar had never managed to say. Had anyone? Did anyone, in the rocky, painful time after Hero’s birthday and hospitalisation, actually say those words and mean them?

Balthazar can’t remember, and the guilt sits sick and heavy in his stomach, twists through his ribcage and around his throat.

“I--” says Peter, then stops abruptly. Balthazar watches his shoulders rise and fall again.

Costa draws back, looks at Peter in a mix of sympathy and disappointment. “Now, are we going to get through rehearsal without further incident?”

“Yeah,” Peter whispers, blinking. “Yeah—yeah, okay.”

Costa grins. “Wonderful.”

“Um,” Peter says. “Would you mind letting go of me so I can grab the deodorant?”

That, it seems, is enough to break the tension, and Balthazar turns back to the water bottle, unscrewing the cap and taking a sip.

“Damn,” whistles Jaquie.

Balthazar laughs. “Yeah.”

The situation had been resolved without Balthazar’s interference, without any of his power. Despite that, exhaustion settles over him like a heavy blanket, familiar but unwelcome. He wonders if other situations he had interceded in would have been resolved so neatly if he had never said anything; if his own actions only pushed the issues further down, concentrated them.

_ Well, _ he muses, as rehearsal begins again, _ it’s not like they’ll have to worry about that much longer. _

This one, at least, goes without incident. By the end of it, everyone is panting again, sweat running in rivulets down the backs of their necks and shining on their forehead, but all of them are smiling.

“Wonderful!” Costa cheers, as Jaquie attempts to separate her shirt from her skin and Peter reaches for the water bottles. “As we discussed, there are going to be some added elements in the performance, but I’m certain we’re all ready for them.”

Paige, who has crossed the room to Balthazar, snorts softly and lays her head on his knee. “I should have thought to bring coffee,” she sighs. “Or red bull. Some sort of energy drink. Those are so rarely dryad-approved though.”

Chelsey is caught in an enthusiastic conversation with Jaquie, their voices echoing around the small auditorium. Peter and Costa are talking quietly, intensely.

“You’ll be fine,” Balthazar assures her, running a hand through her hair.

Paige falls quiet for a moment. “The music’s good, right?” she asks, voice soft and vulnerable. “I’ve played for open nights before, and for specific beings—even the song Peter put up on his tumblr. This feels…different.”

Balthazar runs his hand through her hair again, wonders vacantly if she uses spells and potions or just shampoo and conditioner. “It’s amazing,” he says, with sincerity, and knows she feels it.

She sighs. “Thanks.” For another few minutes, they sit in companionable silence, then Chelsey skips over, filled with more energy than anyone else in the room.

“Hey,” she greets them, and bends down to press a kiss to her girlfriend’s lips. “I think the audience will start arriving soon.”

“Okay, help me up.”

Chelsey pulls Paige to her feet and tucks herself neatly into her side. “You ready for this, babe?”

“Always, darling.”

Balthazar helps them all clean up, and pretends he doesn’t notice Peter’s eyes on him as people filter in—Ben and Freddie, Kit, some faces from the gatherings (that should be interesting) and some he doesn’t recognise.

Costa greets them all with the same wild smile and unbounded enthusiasm. “Prepare for your socks to be positively blown off!” he announces, when it seems everyone is inside, and Jaquie crosses the room to close the door.

“Are you ready?” Balthazar asks Peter, who has made his rounds of the room and settled in the outskirts next to him.

“Always, bro,” he answers, with a grin that warms Balthazar’s heart and, in the same moment, fills it with dread. How many more of these grins will he get to see?

“If you will take your seats,” Costa calls, over the hum of conversation, and Peter takes a deep breath, patting Balthazar’s shoulder as they walk to their respective places. “Please give us the courtesy of turning off all mobile phones and recording devices. Keep your chatter to a minimum, excepting the places we encourage it. Thank you.” He waits a moment, bouncing on his heels, and Balthazar finds a free seat next to Freddie. She smiles at him, bright eyed, eyeliner on both eyes.

Costa clears his throat. “Now—presenting: the Nine Worthies, with Marlow’s Faustus!”

The actors settle on stage, and Costa bows out of the way, and the play begins.

It’s nice, in the sea of endings Balthazar has been drowning in, to see something start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to annoying real life events such as university, we have to extend our update schedule just a tad. Chapters will now be posted every two weeks. Thanks so much for your patience :) x
> 
> And here is a [superb edit](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142543475393) by the cool cat [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	15. Chapter 14 - Part 2

The play cannot be described with words in the English language.

Balthazar decides, halfway into the first act and after having witnessed not one, but two parkour routines, an actual fire being lit on stage, and a scene done entirely in the dark to “immerse the audience more fully into the sensory experience of the play” - a phrase Balthazar overheard before they went on - that the only word for Costa’s artistic vision is “ambitious”.

Still, there is something rather captivating with the whole spectacular mess of a production, an authentic enthusiasm to incorporate a story of magic into the play that is both vivid and rather surreal. It’s laughably far from the truth, to be sure, but despite that it still manages to feel honest. Paige nails all of her musical cues with gusto and almost-nails her lines as the Bad Angel with a smile that dazzles. Chelsey is scarily passionate, screaming her lines so loudly the room reverberates with her voice. Jaquie speaks with her eyes and whispers with her body movements; Costa plays his role with a vigor that astounds. Peter –

Peter is mesmerizing.                                                                               

Peter is everything Balthazar knew he was capable of, assuredly confident and devastatingly heartbreaking in the same breath. All of the tension Balthazar watched in the earlier rehearsal with bated breath is gone, replaced with something – something fierce. Something  _ alive _ . Peter leaps across the stage like it’s his home, and he doesn’t get all of his lines perfect but he  _ owns _ them. He’s Peter, every line is  _ him _ , but at the same time he’s not. He is Faustus too, wholly and completely. Sometimes Balthazar forgets he’s in a small theater surrounded by other people. Sometimes, those moments he almost fancies Peter’s eyes catch on his own, he forgets they’re not the only ones in it.

“I do repent, and yet I do despair,” Peter shouts, falling to his knees, and Balthazar’s breath catches in his throat, and in that moment, Balthazar believes him.

When it’s over, the small audience showers the cast with applause. They’re all sweating, foreheads glistening in the bright lights, but they’re triumphant in their bows. When they come up, Peter is smiling, grinning like he’ll never stop, and Balthazar knows, more sure of this than he’s been of most things, that it’s real.

“That was certainly enthusiastic,” Ben says from Kit’s other side.

“It was incredible,” Balthazar says. He can’t take his eyes off of Peter. The sight of his happiness, so open, for the whole world to see, is nothing short of glorious. Balthazar’s throat is inexplicably tight.

“That’s one word for it,” Ben replies dubiously. “They cut out and added  _ so much _ , I mean what is a classic Marlowe play without its  _ integrity _ left intact – “

Costa leaps off the stage, then, plunging directly into the fray – if you could call such a small gathering of people a “fray” – of audience members. The rest of the cast look at each other, shrug, and jump off too.

“Hey, guys!” Paige beams at them, Chelsey in tow as they walk over, and Peter and Jaquie follow behind too. “Thank you so much for coming!”

“The music was amazing,” Balthazar says with a grin. “You killed it.”

Chelsey kisses Paige on the cheek, brilliant and flushing. “She totally did!”

Kit smiles and wraps them both in an embrace. “You both did.”

“That was really something,” Freddie says. She looks a bit shell-shocked, though Paige and Chelsey don’t seem to notice.

“So good at compliments,” Jaquie says, and blows a kiss at Freddie. Quickly she looks away, and if Balthazar didn’t know any better he’d think her cheeks might be tinged with the lightest of pink.

“So how’d I do, Ben?” Peter says, raising an eyebrow. “Did I pass muster?”

Ben looks him over appraisingly, finger tapping at chin as if he’s deep in thought.

“You’ll do, I suppose,” he says.

Peter snorts. “Wow.”

“I thought you were fantastic, Pete,” Balthazar says. These are words, of course, that don’t come close to describing what Balthazar felt about Peter’s performance. But then, he’s never quite known what to say, when it comes to his feelings for Peter. “Well done.”

Peter glances over at him, catches his gaze almost effortlessly, grin creeping onto his face as slow as the dawn. “Thanks, bro.”

Balthazar looks down at his feet, fighting back a traitorous smile.

“You all are going to be here for the after party, yeah?” Paige says, clapping her hands together.

“It’s here in the theater, isn’t it?” Freddie pipes up.

“I don’t know who the hell plans a party in a fucking theater, but…” Peter mutters.

“I mean, I’m amazed Costa was able to book the space in the first place,” Jaquie says, raising her eyebrows. “I don’t think the people who run this place really trust him? Something about not putting out fires for the sake of ‘recreating the authentic feeling of a summer teen bonfire’ – “

“We’re all going to have to leave early though,” Freddie points out. “The flat, I mean. Curfew.”

Peter, predictably, groans.

“Like you’d be missing out on much anyway,” Jaquie says, nudging Peter in the ribs with an elbow. “I bet Costa didn’t even bring any alcohol, he’ll probably just wax poetic about the merits of a bonding activity after the play and how it’s critical for the success of any future performances we put on.”

“That sounds pretty spot on, actually,” Peter says with a thoughtful nod.

“Everyone,” Costa calls out from somewhere behind them, “can we  _ please _ move to the reception area in an  _ orderly fashion _ , we are not  _ zoo animals _ – “

“Right,” Jaquie says. “I forgot it’s not an after party. It’s a  _ reception _ .”

“It’s definitely an after party,” Peter says.

“Whoo!” Chelsey holds up her arms and runs out of the room. It’s as good a sign as any that they should leave too, so the rest of the group trails behind.

Balthazar looks over at Kit, uncharacteristically quiet, as they follow the crowd.

“So what’d you think about that?” he asks, nudging Kit’s shoulder with his own.

“I’m going to be perfectly honest, Balthazar,” Kit says seriously, “but in my numerous years of living among humankind I have never witnessed a portrayal of magic that was such a train wreck.”

Balthazar laughs. There’s no refuting that.

“Came from a good heart, though,” Kit says. “That Costa has a good heart.”

“Everyone was so into it, it was nice,” Balthazar says.

“Yeah, pretty cool to see the enthusiasm.” Kit stretches his arms above his head. “I almost didn’t come because I was gonna work some extra hours at Boyet’s today, but Freddie was all, ‘dinner and play!’ and I was all, ‘works for me.’ But I’m glad I got to see this. Far superior to the last time we saw Faustus.”

They’re in the reception area, now, and the after party is in full swing. People have drinks in hand – it seems Costa did bring alcohol – and are clustered together, voices blurring together in an indistinguishable chatter. Balthazar can see that the rest of their group has already migrated to the other side of the room. His flatmates – Freddie and Ben and Peter – are caught up in some sort of discussion or argument, he can’t quite tell what. Ben has an arm around Peter’s shoulders, and Freddie gestures wildly. Still, they’re all smiling, which is as warming as it is surprising. It’s difficult, for a moment, to reconcile this picture of them with the same people who fought hard enough for the walls of their flat to tremble just months ago. Weeks ago, even.

“Not very high expectations to surpass,” Balthazar says mildly.

“No.” Kit leans against the wall, hands in pockets. Balthazar decides to join him, decides he likes how stable the wall feels against his shoulder blades. “I don’t often dwell on nights in my past, but I return to that one more often than I should.”

Balthazar knows something, he thinks, about dwelling on nights that he shouldn’t.

“And why’s that?”

Kit breathes in deeply. Balthazar thinks, for a moment, that he might not answer, which is understandable. It’s not an easy question, nor is it a fair one.

“You know what’s great about working at Boyet’s?” Kit says.

“Hm?” Balthazar is jarred, a little, more unused than he should be to Kit’s circumventive manner of speech.

“You get the same customers, day in and day out,” he says. “Same people, same faces, but they never really ask for your name, and you never really ask for theirs. It’s hiding in plain sight.”

“You, hiding in plain sight?” Balthazar attempts to joke.

Kit glances at him. “It’s also what’s bad about working at Boyet’s,” he says.

“Ah,” Balthazar says, for lack of anything else.

“I’ve been wondering, for a while now, if it’s worth staying around.” Kit pushes his hands deeper into his pockets. “I’ve been here a couple years, and it’s been fun, it’s been good. My boss is a good man. But for people like us, you know, you just can’t stay in one place for too long. Humans can be very ignorant when they want to be, but even they would notice a person who looks the same as they did ten years ago.”

The words strike Balthazar’s heart like a lightning bolt. It hadn’t even occurred to him that that was something to consider, but he feels like it should have been. So focused he’s been on the present, the present pain and tension and unspoken words, that he hasn’t spared a minute to think of a future he can’t know or predict. But Kit, surely, is the closest he’ll come to glimpsing it.

“Can’t argue with that,” he says. “You must be used to moving around a lot.”

“Hundreds and thousands of years of moving around, though?” Kit raises an eyebrow. “It gets tiring. Even for me. Especially for me, perhaps. Sometimes you think maybe this time you don’t really want to leave, even though you know you have to.”

Maybe that is the problem, right there, the reason why Balthazar is still here, why he hasn’t dared to move forward or backward in all these months. Not wanting to leave, even though he knows he has to. It’s a neat little summary of his plight. But the thing is, if he stays, he will always need to leave. The thought makes his throat feel tight.

“And sometimes,” Kit says, and Balthazar imagines that if he followed Kit’s gaze he might know exactly who he’s looking at, “sometimes you find someone who you think, okay, here is a person who understands me, here is a person who can recognize, you know, maybe not everything, but enough to realize that you’re not exactly a typical kind of guy, and who accepts that anyway. No matter how many times it’s happened before, you always find yourself caught up. You delude yourself into thinking this, finally, is the one who  _ gets  _ it.”

There’s a whole history here, Balthazar thinks, that he could never know.

“Then it turns out they could never have gotten it at all,” Kit says, voice deceptively casual.

_ Peter _ , Balthazar thinks, traitorously. His heart clenches.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“S’okay.” Kit shrugs. “Happens every time.”

“Even this time?” Balthazar raises his eyebrows, thinking back to all the times Kit labeled Freddie as harmless.

Kit sighs. “You should know.”

And they’ve certainly talked about Kit’s friendship with Freddie before, but not like this. Balthazar’s never heard him sound so defeated. So what’s changed since the last time they spoke?

“Something happened when you went to dinner with Freddie,” Balthazar realizes.

“Nothing that matters.” A stranger might think Kit was the picture of relaxed right now, would not see the tension in his shoulders, the tapping of his foot the only hint of agitation he displays. “Nothing she noticed, either.”

“You want to talk about it?” Balthazar ventures, though he knows the answer already.

Kit shakes his head. “Not really.”

They’re quiet for a while. Balthazar has always thought of Kit as unflappable, immovable as stone. But it occurs to him, now, that living so long in a world you’re not sure you belong to doesn’t turn you into stone. It does anything but.

“Would you go back and change it?” Balthazar hesitates, turning his thoughts over in his head. “I mean, would you have wanted to choose something different, back when you had the choice?”

Kit nods, measuring Balthazar’s words, and his own.

“I reckon regret is sort of a pointless thing,” he says. “Regret is a way humans fool themselves into thinking they could have chosen differently in the first place.”

Something in his heart twinges a little, though he couldn’t say why.

“Shit, man,” Balthazar says, lightly. “That’s dark.”

Kit shrugs again. “It’s whatever. I just want a friend.”

The saddest part of that sentence is how sad Kit doesn’t sound.

“I’m a friend,” Balthazar says.

“Yeah,” Kit says wryly, “but for how long?”

Balthazar looks down at the ground. Nothing to be said, to that.

“I guess that’s the thing, though,” Kit says. “Nothing lasts forever. I suspect even I won’t, in the end. You just have to learn how to live with that, however it is you do. All there is to it.”

It sounds almost easy, put like that. When Balthazar looks at Kit, he knows it’s anything but.

Kit laughs quietly to himself, then. “God. Pathetic.” He tilts his head toward the rest of them - Balthazar’s flatmates and everyone else - and smiles slantedly. “Want to brave the masses?”

Balthazar smiles back. “What small masses they are.”

“Ah, well.” Kit slings an arm around Balthazar’s shoulders. “I was really starting to feel like a sad sack.”

“You, a sad sack?” Balthazar says. “Never.”

“I appreciate that, man,” Kit says, squeezing his arm affectionately.

They approach the rest to a chorus of greetings with varying levels of enthusiasm. Paige and Chelsey have broken off to talk to a pair Balthazar recognizes from his first magical gathering – Hermia and Helena? – and Ben is currently engaged in a conversation with Costa that can be heard from the other side of the room.

“Uh, should I be concerned?...” Balthazar says, indicating vaguely at the borderline shouting match.

“Ah, they’ll be fine,” Freddie says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Probably just swapping nerd notes on Marlowe or something.”

“I’d ask you guys if you wanted anything to drink,” Peter says, stepping closer to Balthazar, “but quite honestly, the alcohol is shit.”

“It’s the thought that counts, anyway,” Balthazar says, smiling briefly up at him.

“I don’t know why Costa didn’t ask us for help,” Jaquie says. “I mean, we’re  _ bartenders _ .”

“You know why he didn’t ask us for help,” Peter says, shooting Jaquie a meaningful look.

_ We’re friends,  _ Jaquie had said. They’re friends who understand each other, who can have conversations without saying a word, who support each other with snark and sarcasm and a casual sort of constancy. He’s glad, more than he can say, that Peter has a person like that in his life.

“Wait, so how are we getting back to the flat tonight?” Freddie says. “I guess it’ll be easiest for us to do the same thing we did going here, right?”

Balthazar contemplates, for half a second, the thought of riding home alone with Peter, with an unfinished conversation about the things they’ve never dared to touch before hanging over their heads.

“Are you guys leaving now?” he says. “I might tag along, I’m getting a bit tired myself.”

Peter glances over at him. “You sure? I mean, I wouldn’t want you to wait on me or anything, but – “

“Nah.” Balthazar shakes his head. “You deserve the time to yourself. It’s your night.”

Peter claps him on the shoulder. “Thanks, bro.”

“So do you need a ride back home?” Freddie says, turning her attention to Kit. “I don’t know how you got here, but we could…?”

Kit shrugs gracefully. “I can walk.”

Freddie gasps. “I  _ refuse _ – “

“Directions are confusing,” Kit says. “And I like walking at night.” His tone of voice suggests the end of the discussion. Freddie opens her mouth, closes it again.

“Walking at night in Wellington is rather peaceful, isn’t it?” Balthazar says in an attempt to steer the conversation somewhere else.

“Clears one’s head,” Kit answers.

“You’re all insane,” Jaquie says. “I like it.”

Peter snorts. “Your company is so charming, Jaquie, how can I resist spending this whole night with you?”

This seems to grab Freddie’s attention. She turns to Peter and stares at him sternly. “Remember the curfew, Peter.”

Peter frowns. It’s been such a good night, despite what happened earlier in the car and at rehearsal, despite everything, and Peter just doesn’t deserve his good mood to be ruined. That’s how Balthazar justifies what he does next, anyway.

“Come on, Freddie,” Balthazar says, putting the smallest bit of his power into his words, “it’s an extracurricular.”

“An after party is not an extracurricular,” Freddie says, but her voice has lost its previous strictness.

“I mean, technically Costa considers this a very important part of the play in itself,” Jaquie cuts in. “All that bonding and whatnot.”

“ _ So _ much bonding,” Peter says, pretending to swoon and draping himself over Jaquie.

“Get off, you ass,” Jaquie laughs, shoving at him in vain.

Balthazar really is tired now, but Peter is grinning, genuinely and broadly grinning, and that’s worth any waste of energy Balthazar makes himself go through.

“Well, then,” Freddie sniffs. “I guess we’ll see you later, then.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be out for that long, mother,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. “Alcohol here’s not good enough for that.”

“Although,” Jaquie says thoughtfully, “we  _ could _ stop by the bar – “

“That is definitely not an extracurricular,” Freddie points out.

“Okay, okay,” Peter says, holding up his hands. “Jesus. Back before midnight, scout’s honor.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Jaquie says, giving a mock salute, “I’ll be sure to keep the boy in line.”

“Lord,” Freddie mutters to herself, but there is a tiny smile hovering on the corner of her lips.

They part ways soon after that. Balthazar and Freddie drag Ben away from Costa – “It’s called _artistic_ _integrity_!” – before things get too out of hand. Kit joins them on their way out.

“Hey, you’ll be okay, yeah?” Balthazar says to him, keeping his voice low. Ben and Freddie don’t seem to be paying attention, engrossed as they are in a conversation about all the schoolwork they haven’t done.

“Yeah.” Kit looks at him steadily. “Will you?”

Balthazar glances back toward his flatmates. “Of course,” he says, and isn’t sure if he believes himself.

“All right.” Kit flashes him a brief smile. “See you at some point in the future.” He gives a little wave of his hand, says his farewell to Freddie, and turns away. Balthazar watches as he disappears into the night.

“Is it just me,” Freddie says, “or is it a bit strange for someone with a minimum wage job and no car to refuse a ride?”

“Kit’s a bit strange,” Balthazar says. “Anyway, isn’t that a bit judgmental?”

“I mean, do we even know how he got here?” Freddie says, mouth an unimpressed line.

“What does it matter?” Balthazar rubs at his eyes. This is not the time for petty suspicion. His friends had a good time, and that’s all he has the energy to care about. “He’s his own person.”

“Hm.” Freddie purses her lips and says no more on the subject. They clamber into her car, after that. Balthazar makes the mistake of asking Ben again what he thought of the play, which sets him off on some long-winded rant about all the ways Costa is wrong.

“Now, I understand that you can’t always translate the text of the source material one hundred percent,” Ben says as Freddie turns onto the road. “Like, that’s fair. But how on earth is Costa jumping face-forward into the crowd supposed to help us  _ connect _ to his  _ character _ ? The theater is not a fucking mosh pit.”

“What if the theater wants to be a fucking mosh pit, though?” Balthazar comments. “Don’t kill its dreams.”

“That’s not the point, Balth,” Ben says, gesturing wildly. “The  _ point _ is that there is a certain standard to uphold. I’m not trying to be a purist or anything, but I do expect the script to be left mostly intact! My god, this was in  _ shambles _ . How am I supposed to connect to the story when you’ve so horribly mangled the language? Which, by the way, is eons better than anything anyone could put out these days. And to add insult to injury, the cast showed a complete lack of understanding of iambic pentameter! I mean,  _ really _ .”

“Why does this matter so much to you, Ben?” Freddie says over her shoulder. “I mean, like, not that it was the best thing I’ve ever seen, but they all had fun, didn’t they?”

“We should be proud of Peter and the rest of them,” Balthazar adds. “They did well with what they were given. Or the best they could, anyway.”

Ben crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his seat. “I could do better in my sleep,” Ben mumbles.

“Just because Costa’s vision doesn’t line up with yours of how a play’s supposed to be,” Freddie begins.

“But - !” Ben makes a frustrated noise. “That’s – you know, some things are just supposed to be a certain way! Otherwise how will they make sense? Otherwise how do you live with yourself?”

Balthazar gets a strange sense, then, that maybe they’re not talking about the play anymore.

“I think I get where you’re coming from,” he says. “It’s not exactly an interpretation you’re familiar with, yeah? So that can be a little jarring.”

“Exactly! It was – it wasn’t consistent!”

“Life’s not consistent,” Freddie says. “You can’t just expect everything it throws at you to be familiar.”

“But – “ Ben blinks rapidly. “But wouldn’t that make it easier?”

“Life’s not easy,” Freddie says, deepening her voice in some sort of parody of something.

“Well, of course it’s not, but that’s not the  _ point _ ,” Ben says.

“Come on, Ben. You can’t just expect things to always go your way.”

“Hmph,” Ben grumbles.

“Though I have to admit the way you cornered Costa was pretty hilarious,” Freddie says with a laugh. “I dunno if you saw it, Balth, but the way Ben marched up to him. A man on a damn mission. Who would have thought he was only going to discuss the particulars of Marlowe that literally no one else cares about?”

She laughs again. Ben doesn’t.

“It’s not funny,” Ben says.

“Ben – “ Freddie’s eyes flicker up to the mirror at them.

“I don’t appreciate being made fun of like that, it’s not funny.”

Freddie scrunches her eyebrows together. “I wasn’t making fun – “

“I mean, like, I get it, I’m comedic relief or whatever, but I don’t – “

“Ben, I didn’t mean it like that,” Freddie says.

“Who the hell’s been trying to keep the peace for months now?” Ben says, his voice rising. “But it’s not like anyone says makes any whit of a fucking difference, you’ll just tear the rest of us apart over you-know-what regardless, and then you take away the  _ one thing _ that made it more bearable – “

_ God _ , Balthazar thinks. The punishment.

“You’d been breaking the rules since the moment we implemented them!” Freddie shouts.

“At least I wasn’t starting fights, I was just trying to figure out my own fucking head - “

“But you made an agreement, just like the rest of us, you’re not some exception or - or a special snowflake just because you’re  _ confused  _ \- “

“That doesn’t give you the right to take my fucking routine away from me when it’s  _ all I have _ – “

“Well, excuse me for trying to keep the flat in order – “

“How the hell is me trying to  _ figure my shit out _ getting in the way of that at all – “

“I gave up everything for this, Ben, I had to give up my damn livelihood just so we could live with each other more easily, and then for you to just spit on that - “

Balthazar wishes, for a moment, that Peter was here. Peter has always known what to say in moments like these better than he does.

Even so, he’s here alone, and there’s no changing that now.

“Ben,” Balthazar says, putting as much power into his voice as he can, because it’s never been within his capabilities to make tension go away, but at least he can make it a little easier to deal with, “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t thought about that.”

He can see Freddie’s eyes widening in the rear view mirror. “Balth – “

“The rules are pretty important,” he says with a shrug, feeling his energy seep away with every word he utters. “But I know we’re all just trying to find ways to deal with them, and with each other. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

Freddie’s shoulders relax. He’s even more tired, and he can feel the usual headache threatening to burgeon between his temples, but seeing that, he knows he’s made the right choice. “I guess you’re right.”

Ben’s quiet, now, and when Balthazar hazards a glance at him he looks back, not quite happy but not quite sad either.

“The punishment must have been harder than we realized,” Balthazar prompts.

“Yeah,” he says, quietly. “Yeah, it was.”

“Did you talk to Bea about it?” Balthazar looks down at his hands. “The thing we were talking about the other day, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Ben sighs a long sigh. “You know, I still really have no idea what to do about it. It’s not an easy thing to deal with.”

“No,” Balthazar says. “It’s not.”

Freddie’s gaze flickers to Balthazar in the rear view mirror. Her eyes are markedly unhappy, and she says nothing.

They arrive back at the flat soon after that.They trudge up the stairs in a not quite uneasy silence, and when they get in Freddie and Ben duck into their rooms almost immediately. Despite his exhaustion, however, Balthazar is a bit too keyed up to try going to sleep. Something about all the tension he’s had to be a part of today hasn’t quite yet settled under his skin. He makes himself a cup of coffee, the routine steadying his fingers, and curls up with a book on the couch. He doesn’t know when Peter will be back, but maybe he’ll get an hour or so to himself, which would be a bit of a relief, after a whole day surrounded by other people.

As it turns out, barely five minutes pass before the key turns.

“Oh,” Peter says, pausing in the doorway.

“Hey, there, Pete,” Balthazar says, waving.

“I thought you lot would have gone off to bed already.”

“Ben and Freddie did.” Balthazar pauses. “I thought you would be out for longer.”

Peter shrugs. “Decided there wasn’t really much point anymore with most everyone I actually care about gone.” He points awkwardly toward the empty space next to Balthazar. “Mind if I – “

“Nah, go ahead.” Balthazar shifts a little to the side, not that Peter really needs the extra room, there’s already so much there. “Just wanted to tire myself out enough to get to bed.”

“Yeah, makes sense.” Peter falls next to Balthazar, sides pressing together. Balthazar decides not to mention there’s enough space on the couch that this isn’t actually necessary. “I mean, the show wore me out, but I’m still – I dunno, riding the high from it, I guess?”

“Yeah?” Balthazar puts his book aside.

“It was the first time playing Faustus felt like that.” Peter’s voice resembles something like wonder. “I didn’t know acting could  _ be _ that.”

“Be…?”

“Be so – “ Peter lets his head fall back. “So  _ freeing _ .”

It’s what Rosa once said about music, and it’s what Balthazar feels about it too. Maybe it’s not just about the music, or even about the performance. Maybe it’s about showing a part of yourself, however small, to the rest of the world, and accepting that it’s all you really have to offer.

“Yeah, I think I get it,” Balthazar says slowly. “It’s like when everything kinda clicks into place and you just… sort of get it.”

“Yeah!” Peter’s eyes light up. “Exactly, yeah.”

“It’s like nothing else really matters, outside that moment.”

“Right.” Peter nods. “You know, I was talking about it with Jaquie after, and I  _ got _ it. I got that – that struggle, you know?” Peter casts a glance at him, glowing with excitement. “I mean, like, Faustus was this guy who was brilliant and who had basically all you could ever want in life, but he wanted  _ more _ . He wanted the whole world, he wanted  _ everything _ . So he did the absolute unforgivable to get that, and then he got it. He got what he wanted. But then it turns out maybe that’s not what he wanted at all. Except it’s too late, and he loses it all. He had chance after chance to repent, but he chose not to, and in the end, there was no saving him from damnation.” Peter breaks off, as if struggling to find the words, and starts back up again, faltering. “I  _ got _ that. You know? Begging for forgiveness. And – it’s just too late. I get that.”

His speech is long and rambling and Balthazar doesn’t know if he himself understands. But he can see Peter, soft smile on his lips, and he can see how open and relaxed he is like he hasn’t been in months, and he can be glad about that.

“I’m proud of you,” Balthazar says. “Really.”

Peter grins. “Thanks, bro.”

Balthazar looks away, trying to hide his smile and not knowing how well he’s succeeded. “So you like acting, then?”

“I guess it’s just something I can find resonance in,” Peter says. “I mean, this whole time, it was just something I did for fun, like I wasn’t really  _ thinking _ about it, but…” He pauses, thoughtful. “I think it’s been good. Sort of just a way to, like, get out of my head for a bit, you know?”

The play’s been good for Peter. It’s a thought Balthazar has run across before, of course, but it was always merely a potential in the past, a possibility. Now he sees the result of it, and the result is a Peter who hasn’t managed to stop smiling since the play ended.

“Yeah?” Balthazar says, knocking his knee into Peter’s.

Peter nods, corner of mouth still upturned. “Yeah.”

They fall into a silence that almost feels as familiar to Balthazar as his own name. He doesn’t know what Peter is thinking, can’t know, but he wonders if Peter can feel it as keenly as he can, the tension between them earlier in the day swiftly receding into an unmentionable past. The quiet is almost too comfortable, and if Balthazar’s not careful, he can almost forget that he shouldn’t allow it to be.

Peter shifts in his seat, then, and when Balthazar looks over he is almost startled to find the traces of a frown on Peter’s face.

“Listen,” Peter says. “About earlier…”

So he was thinking about before. Immediately, Balthazar feels himself on an edge he can’t see or know, like a cliff in the dark. “Pete, you don’t have to…”

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, frowning. “I just – I am. It wasn’t fair of me to put you on the spot like that.”

Balthazar shakes his head firmly. “You didn’t put me on the spot.”

“It wasn’t my place to ask something like that,” Peter says, looking down. “I should know by now. It’s not – we don’t – “

“Peter – “

“You’re not obligated to answer to me, okay?” If Balthazar didn’t know any better, he’d almost think that there’s a trace of bitterness to Peter’s voice. “It’s not… I get it.”

Balthazar swallows past the sudden lump in his throat.

“You know…” he says. “What you were saying earlier, about your character…”

“Yeah?” Peter says warily.

“I know you relate to Faustus a lot, but…” He hesitates. “Your life’s not a tragedy, you know that, right? It’s not too late.”

The frown on Peter’s face gets deeper. “And how would you know that?”

“It’s just. It’s just not.” Balthazar closes his eyes. “And you don’t have to beg for it.”

“You really think so?” Balthazar doesn’t know what Peter sounds like. Confused, maybe. Disbelieving. He doesn’t know which would be worse.

“No.” Balthazar exhales and opens his eyes, and manages not to look away when he sees the look on Peter’s face. “Not when you already have it.”

“For what?” Peter demands, voice ragged.

“For last year,” Balthazar says quietly. “I realized, today, that I never told you that. But you deserve to hear it anyway.”

It’s probably too little, too late. But it’s never seemed more important to say it, when he still has the time to at all.

Peter exhales slowly. “And this year?”

What of this year? What of a year with pushing and pulling and space and no-space between them? What of a year during which they both gave and took and hurt and healed? What can he say about a year like that?

“You don’t need it for this year,” Balthazar says, and though it’s hard to get the words out, it’s still the truth, and he gets precious few opportunities these days to be really honest. “You didn’t do anything that needs it.” Not anything that Balthazar didn’t return.

“But you said – “ Peter breaks off with a sharp inhale, starts back up again with more determination in his voice. “You said it was too hard to talk to me anymore – “

And god, if Balthazar could regret those words, he would in a heartbeat, but he’d regret the alternative - letting himself hope, and wish, and want, for all the things he can never have; even worse, Peter hoping, and wishing, and wanting, to the day Balthazar has to destroy it all - even more.

“Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t you, it was me?” Balthazar says.

The comment surprises a laugh out of Peter. “Balth, you didn’t say we were breaking up.”

Balthazar forces a smile. “How can you break up when you’ve never been together?”

Peter looks down at his hands and smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Right.”

And here’s the thing, right in front of him. Peter’s genuinely been happy for most of the night, and the one thing that never seems to fail to ruin that is Balthazar. Funny how that works out.

“I just…” Balthazar breathes in deeply. “I had a lot going on then. And, you know, I still do. So I guess I just need some time and space to figure myself out. I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer about that. You deserve better.”

Peter runs a hand through his hair. “You know,” he says, slowly, “if you need to talk about it…”

“Maybe some time.” Which is a lie. “But – this is enough, for now.” Which isn’t.

Peter looks at him again, softly. He reaches out and takes hold of Balthazar’s hand, and this time Balthazar feels no urge to let him go.

“I’m here for you,” Peter says quietly. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah.” Balthazar smiles weakly. “I know.”

Peter squeezes once, then pulls away. He leans back on the couch with a loud sigh and tilts his head toward the ceiling. He can’t know, from this angle, so Balthazar allows himself to stare at him, to drink in the sight of his profile, the curve of his Adam’s apple. There will come a time, no matter what he chooses, when this won’t be possible anymore.

“You know something weird?” Peter says.

Balthazar swallows. “What’s that?”

“Tonight almost makes me want to believe in magic again,” Peter says.

It’s the first time in Balthazar’s life that  _ almost _ feels a little like victory.

  
  
  


_ Hero is admitted to the hospital, and the semblance of normal—of  _ **_repair_ ** _ —their group had managed to build falls apart. _

_ Balthazar visits her in the hospital, because he is one of the precious few that do; because, in some way, it’s his fault, what happened. If he had  _ **_told_ ** _ , if he had  _ **_known_ ** _ , if he had  _ **_just stopped Peter in time_ ** _ — _

_ “Hey,” says Ursula, handing him a cup. It’s hospital coffee, strong and bitter and rather disgusting, but he takes it gratefully. “How long are you here for?” _

_ Balthazar thinks of the strong, frail girl in the ward just a floor up. He thinks of home, the superior glances and the responsibility. He does not think of anyone else. “A little while,” he answers, and she means at the hospital, but he doesn’t think he can face anything else. _

_ She nods, takes a sip of her own terrible coffee, grimaces. “This is disgusting.” _

_ That startles a laugh out of him, quiet and sharp. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It really is.” _

_ They stroll up to the wards, and Ursula smiles and carries her side of the conversation, but there’s a tense set to her shoulders, a stiffness in her spine. Balthazar wishes he could do  _ **_something_ ** _ to banish it, to make everything better. A few simple words won’t fix it, not really; he’s tried, but all he’s gotten is a headache for his troubles. The issue is more pervasive than that, running deep to the core of their beings. _

_ “Hero’s mums are arriving soon,” Ursula says, as they walk into the set of wards. “Bea thought—well, it was bad enough with everything else, but Hero in a hospital…”  _ **_We’d hoped it would be better by the time they came back_ ** _ , goes unspoken. _

_ Balthazar nods. “It’ll be good for her.” _

_ Ursula presses her lips together, looks like she might want to say something else, and Balthazar keeps his eyes on her until the heat of the coffee starts burning into his palm. He shifts it to the other hand, and Ursula takes a deep breath. _

_ “I just wish—”  _

_ And Bea bursts around the corner, looking murderous. Ursula sighs, adjusts her glasses. _

_ “ _ **_Pedro_ ** _ ,” Bea grits. “Keeps calling me, even though I told I’d kill him if he didn’t stop.” _

_ Balthazar’s coffee is suddenly more interesting than anything else in the hospital. His stomach churns, and he remembers the last time he spoke to him, his unapologetic fury. _

_ “I’m going to go to Hero,” Ursula says, with a significant look at Balthazar. She slides past Bea, worry clear in her eyes. _

_ Bea nods, then continues, fingers clutched so tightly around her phone it seems in serious danger of shattering. “And then Hero  _ **_saw_ ** _ my phone while he was calling, and, oh my god, the way her face just  _ **_fell_ ** _.” Her voice, strained and furious just a moment ago, is hollow. She takes a breath, and it shakes and shudders through her lungs. “I hate him.” _

_ Balthazar tries to pretend that there isn’t a part of himself that does, too. He thinks of Hero’s blonde, stringy hair, her too-pale face and shaking hands, and fails. _

_ “How is she?” he asks. He saw her just yesterday, but a lot can change in a day; in a few minutes, even. _

_ “Dealing,” answers Bea. “As well as she can. As well as any of us can, I suppose. I wish the aunties were here already. They’d know what to do.” _

_ Balthazar doesn’t ask where Leo is, because Leo sided with Claudio and the others, and he knows the subject will just bring back Beatrice’s terrible fury. He finishes his coffee. “You’ve done well,” he says, finally. _

_ “I thought—” Bea sighs, “I thought it was getting better. I thought we were  _ **_fixing_ ** _ things.” _

_ It’s been two days since Hero was admitted to the hospital, and Balthazar hasn’t seen Pedro since. “Me, too,” he confesses. _

_ “God, this is so screwed up,” Bea says, and he ignores that it comes out half a sob. Her phone buzzes again, and her breath hitches. “That  _ **_asshole_ ** _!” She slams her finger onto the  _ **_reject_ ** _ button. _

_ Balthazar swallows, wishes he had more of that horrible coffee. “What does he want?” he asks.  _ **_What has he ever wanted?_ **

_ She shrugs, sharp and harried. “God, I don’t—he was saying something about John, the time I picked up. About it being his fault. About him being wrong. I couldn’t deal with it, not now.” _

_ Balthazar thinks,  _ **_I could_ ** _. He presses his teeth into his lower lip. “What if it’s important?” _

_ “I don’t give a flying fuck, honestly. He can wait until we sort this all out, and Hero’s mums are here, and I actually have time to  _ **_think_ ** _ for a few moments— _ **_then_ ** _ , I’ll shout at him.  _ **_God_ ** _ , I wish he’d stop calling.” _

_ “I can talk to him,” Balthazar says, before he can stop himself. He shouldn’t. It’s a terrible idea. _

_ Bea looks up at him, desperation and relief and guilt swirling and shining in her red-rimmed eyes. “I can’t make you do that,” she says. _

_ Balthazar bites his lip again. He  _ **_really_ ** _ shouldn’t. “I don’t mind,” he lies, because that is the lie that will stop the tapping of her foot, the muscles knotting together in her back that are really just leading to her breaking down before the week is out. _

_ “Murder him for me?” Bea asks, only half a joke. _

_ Balthazar is already pulling out his phone, opening the countless unanswered messages from Pedro. _

**_To: Pedro Donaldson_ ** **_  
_ ** Can we talk?

_ The reply comes only a moment later. _

**_From: Pedro Donaldson_ ** **_  
_ ** Of course, bro.

**_From: Pedro Donaldson_ ** **_  
_ ** The park? I need to get out of my house.

_ Balthazar considers: the sunshine, bright in Pedro’s hair; the soft smell of dirt and plants, a reminder of home; Hero’s illness; all that has been left unresolved between them. _

**_To: Pedro Donaldson_ ** **_  
_ ** Okay.

_ He looks up at Bea, forces a smile that anyone who has known him for more than five seconds will know is fake. _

_ “I make no promises,” he says, and that’s only half a joke, too. _

_ When Balthazar arrives at the park, Pedro is sitting on one of the swingsets, the playground almost empty. Balthazar sits on the swing next to him, silent, and keep his eyes on their feet. _

_ “Hey,” Pedro says, voice raw, scratchy. A beat, then, “I thought you might not come.” _

_ Balthazar doesn’t say,  _ **_I thought I might not, either_ ** _ ; he doesn’t say anything, just lets the silence sit heavy between them. _

_ Pedro shifts, the chains of the swing grating together. “I’m sorry.” Misery drips off every syllable, pooling at their feet. “Fuck, I’m so, so sorry.” _

_ Balthazar presses his lips together. If he opens his mouth, he might say something dreadful, something like,  _ **_I forgive you_ ** _. It’s not his forgiveness to give. _

_ “I didn’t know—” Pedro starts, then stops, because he  _ **_did_ ** _ know, and they both know it.  Then, “It was John, who convinced us. He said—he said he was sick of our naivety, the way we— _ **_I_ ** _ —just believed everything was wonderful. Especially magic. How we could just believe in it with so much ridiculous faith.” _

_ Balthazar had loved that faith, loved the passion in Pedro’s eyes and smile when he found another myth. It had helped him through some more difficult times, to know that Pedro believed, that Pedro  _ **_loved_ ** _ who he is, even if he could never know. Now, his stomach churns. John, too? The list of people they can trust shrinks again. _

_ “He told us that he had proof. He  _ **_showed_ ** _ us. It was indisputable; everything lined up perfectly. There was—we thought she was cheating, with Robbie,” –he hesitates– “some other people…” _

_ “Hero would never,” Balthazar says automatically, because it’s so ridiculous, because if Hero is anything, she is  _ **_loyal_ ** _. “How did that make  _ **_any_ ** _ sense?” _

_ Pedro flinches, and Balthazar realises how harsh his words were. He wants to be sorry. _

_ “I don’t know. It was stupid. We were stupid.” _

_ Balthazar bites his lips, considers his words. “You know…” he starts, then stops, considers again. “No girls were mentioned, at the…”  _ **_The party._ ** _ “We all know she’s pan. She was already out, then, but he only mentioned guys.” _

_ “God,” Pedro groans. “I don’t know. Just add it to the list of shitty things we’ve done. Maybe his masculinity was threatened. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he’s just that much of a douchebag. Maybe we all are.” _

_ “It wasn’t fair,” Balthazar continues, hating how he’s just making everything between them worse. He thinks of Hero in the bed, pale and miserable, apologising for the trouble she caused, as if it were her fault. “To just erase her sexuality.  _ **_You should know that_ ** _.” _

_ “Yeah,” he agrees. “I should.” The sorry goes unsaid, but that’s  _ **_not good enough_ ** _. It should be said, repeated, plastered like a bandaid over all the cracks they’ve caused. Humans have a strange way of making words mean more than anything should, mean more than actions and soft looks and lovely smiles. Making them cut and burn and destroy. _

_ The silence stretches out between them again, and Balthazar counts seventy heartbeats before Pedro speaks again. _

_ “I don’t know where he is.” _

_ The sudden change of subject throws Balthazar off for a moment. “Claudio?” _

_ “No, John.” _

_ “John?” he repeats, and Pedro nods. _

_ “I said—I said some really bad stuff, after she was put in the hospital. That it was his fault, that he’d killed her. And he was crying, and I didn’t care… I thought,  _ **_he deserves it_ ** _.” Pedro’s voice shakes. “I thought he’d ruined everything, and I told him that, and he walked out the door,  _ **_and he hasn’t come back_ ** _. It’s been two days, and he hasn’t come home.” _

_ Balthazar hasn’t seen Rosa for five months, but she’s never walked out on him in fury. He reaches out, eyes still on his own feet, and finds Pedro’s hand. Pedro’s fingers twist around his, but they tremble. _

_ “I was wrong,” Pedro continues. “It was my fault.” _

_ There is a part of Balthazar that wants to tell him it wasn’t, but he knows that part is lying, and he already lies to him with alarming frequency. _

_ “My fault, and  _ **_magic_ ** _.” _

_ Balthazar’s breath catches. Pedro’s hand is warm in his, fingers tight around his palm. _

_ “Fuck,” Pedro says. “My  _ **_belief_ ** _ in magic.” _

_ “Oh,” replies Balthazar. _

_ “I read up on succubi.” Pedro moves his hand, as though to rub his face, and Balthazar is prepared to let go, but he stops, lets their hands hang between them. “They don’t get  _ **_sick_ ** _. They don’t cry, or feel pain.” _

**_They don’t exist_ ** _. _

_ “Hero’s in the hospital. Hero’s  _ **_sick_ ** _. She’s not a succubus—of course she’s not.” Pedro takes one breath, then two. “I was stupid to believe she was.” _

_ Balthazar doesn’t contradict him, and he is torn between triumph and the sickening feeling that he has betrayed Pedro, somehow. _

_ Pedro snorts. “I’ve never actually come across a magical creature. Just—legends, and sightings, and stupid kids believing in stupid stories. Just a ridiculous belief founded in fairytales.” _

_ “Belief in magic isn’t ridiculous,” Balthazar says. He tightens his grip on Pedro’s hand. _

_ He laughs, bitter and sharp. “You don’t even believe in it,” he says. “You’ve never believed in it.” _

_ If only he knew. _

_ “Magic doesn’t exist,” Pedro says, and there is something dull in his voice, empty, like he’s lost a piece of himself. Maybe he has. Magic has always been so important to him—a puzzle, a goal, a piece of himself that he doesn’t have to let go of for the benefit of his peers. _

_ “Okay,” Balthazar says, and Pedro’s hand slips out of his. He’s not sure who let go. “Okay,” he repeats, and thinks of Hero’s fear and Ursula’s tension and Beatrice’s fury, and doesn’t try to find his hand again. _

_ “Thanks, bro,” Pedro sighs, and he doesn’t reach out, either. He doesn’t say anything else, and Balthazar doesn’t look up, and the lump in his throat stops him from contributing anything else to the conversation. _

_ They sit like, that, in silence, until the sun goes down. Then Pedro goes home, to a house that’s missing a piece, and Balthazar goes back to the hospital. He holds Hero’s hand and promises to teach her ukulele, and pretends that he is not still on the verge of tears. If Hero notices, she doesn’t say, and he thinks of Pedro’s words, unintentionally cutting, and tries to mimic her smile. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of this moment, we have three chapters and an epilogue planned after this chapter. Oh gosh, we're not ready for it to end.
> 
> [Some](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142546049977) [really](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142548713149/would-you-go-back-and-change-it-i-mean-would) [amazing](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142554111378) [edits](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/142551419711) by the terrific [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	16. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for: explicit threats of violence. If there's anything else, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Three weeks before Balthazar’s birthday, Peter grins widely at him across the living room. He’s just about to head out, and Peter is standing by the calendar.

“Hey, Balth,” he says. “Twenty days until you’re nineteen. Are you excited?”

Balthazar’s heart skips a beat. “Uh,” he replies. “Yeah, I guess so. Haven’t really thought about it,” he lies through his teeth.

“Well, I know I have. Already have your present and everything.”

Balthazar forces himself to grin, hopes it’s not too weak. He should joke about it: _How was it shopping without me this time_? The words stick in his throat. “Cool,” he manages, and walks out the door without looking at Peter’s reaction.

No one asks him about his birthday again, and the days he has wane further and further, melting into each other until he looks back and he can’t tell how he got to this point. There is an injustice in that, he thinks, that what might be his last days in the human realms are lost in a haze of stress and fear.

One afternoon, about a week before, he sits in Boyet’s with a coffee hot between his hands, phone sitting on the table next to it. He needs a few moments away from the flat, from everything; from thinking. Here, he can imagine the white noise drowns out his fears-- the hum of the coffee machines, soft music, low conversation.

His phone starts ringing. Rosa.

“Hey, Rosa,” he greets as he picks it up, not giving himself a chance to hesitate.

“Balthazar,” she replies. “How are you?”

Balthazar considers, and lets the silence stretch on too long. He’s already lied to almost every person he has ever cared about, but telling the truth would just worry her. She’s centuries old and the strongest person he knows, and he doesn’t want to worry her. “I...” he answers, and lets the unspoken words fall heavy between them.

Rosa sighs through the phone. “Okay,” she says. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be in town this afternoon.”

His heart seizes and jumps to his throat. It’s ten in the morning and no one will be home for a few hours; even if he left now, he wouldn’t have time to say goodbye, not really. “That’s soon.” His words come out strained and cracked with apprehension, with an ending drawing closer at breakneck speed, far too fast to even dream of stopping.

He hears her breathe through the phone, lets that ground him, calm him. “It is,” she acknowledges. “But we don’t have to leave straight away; I have a few goodbyes to say here.”

Rosa had known a Boyet, once; she had a history that was probably painful and hopeful, twisted around hearts and souls and little coffee shops with something for everyone and open mic nights where friendships are born. “Me too,” he says.

His sister is silent for a moment. “You’ve decided to come, then?”

He doesn’t tell her, _I have no choice_ , or _I don’t want to_ , or _we have to leave soon or I might not go at all_ , but he means them all when he says, “Yeah.” The word starts to drop away halfway through, and he swallows through the rest of it.

Rosa’s breath hitches and stills through the phone. “Balthazar, you know I meant it when I told you—”

“I know.” _I have to_.

“I’m serious. This is not a decision you can go back on. Think of your friends, okay? Think of the people you’re going to leave behind.”

He does. He thinks of Peter’s eyes, bright and confused when Balthazar gave him his forgiveness; Ben’s earnest need to know who he is; Freddie’s conflict and decisions, not all that different to his own. He thinks of Paige and Chelsey, who have somehow become more like parents to him than his own have ever been. He thinks of Kit, who just wants a friend. He thinks of everyone he has ever known, who has ever shaped him into who he is.

It is a week before his birthday, and he has to leave them behind.

“I am,” Balthazar answers. His throat is tight and scratchy, and stretches taut over the words. “It doesn’t matter.”

Rosa breathes again. “You do,” she sighs. “You matter.” Before he can answer, she adds, “Look, I’ll be there this afternoon, okay? I’ll come around your flat; there are some things we need to discuss.”

“Okay,” he answers, and puts the phone back onto the table when she hangs up. The coffee is cooling but he can’t bring himself to drink it; it’s irrational and ridiculous, but he _really_ doesn’t want to reach the end of something.

It’s one thing to decide he’ll do his duty and join the elven realms; another entirely to stare it right in the face and work at unhooking everyone else’s grips on his heart.

Balthazar isn’t sure how long he stays there, but his coffee is cold by the time he looks up, roused by Kit’s presence on the other side of the table.

“Oh,” he says, and looks at the time. It’s just before two, already afternoon. “Hey, Kit.”

The faery tilts his head at him, at once amused and a little pitying. “Problem with your coffee, man?”

Balthazar looks down at the cup, still full. “Oh, no, sorry. Just… thinking.”

Kit sits down. He’s not wearing an apron and his bag is on his shoulder. “Want to talk about it?”

He shrugs, fiddles with the cup. “Rosa’s coming this afternoon.”

Giving him an appraising look, Kit raises an eyebrow. “That’s pretty soon,” he hums.

“Yeah.”

“You going to go back with her?”

Balthazar shrugs. The confirmation sticks in his throat.

“Ah,” the faery says, eyes on the table between them. “I wish I could tell you that I’m used to it by now.” There is a fragility in his voice, and Balthazar wants to insist that the decision hasn’t been made yet, that there’s still a chance. That would be lying, though. The decision had been made before he was born.

“I’m sorry,” Balthazar whispers; that, at least, is not a lie. He wants, suddenly, and desperately—and yet _not_ suddenly, because it’s been there all along, and _not_ desperately, because it’s quiet, too, and steady—to stay. For Kit, who has lost everyone; for everyone Balthazar is going to lose.

“I know you are.” He shrugs. “I’ve had worse.”

Balthazar forces a smile, just at the edges of his mouth. “Somehow, that’s not very reassuring,” he says.

Kit grins, wide and almost real. “We take what we can get,” he says, then, “Hey, are you heading back to your flat?”

“Yeah, pretty soon.” Balthazar takes a sip of his coffee—not as good cold, but not too bad.

“Cool, cool. Freddie asked me over, said she wanted to ask me about some stuff.”

Balthazar stills and looks up. The faery sits half-slouched in the chair across from him, not meeting his eyes. Is this a way the fae have found to get around their inability to lie? Masks and facades have never come easy to Balthazar, but Kit wears his with practiced familiarity. “Do you know what?” he asks, and means, _are you in danger?_

Kit shrugs.

Balthazar opens his mouth to continue, to press further, but Kit is already standing. “Well, I’m ready to go whenever you are. Come on, you can drink it on the way.” His voice is casual, slow, but in all the time Balthazar has known him, Kit has never been one to hurry. This in itself is enough to quell any further questioning.

“Yeah, sure,” he answers, pulling his bag onto his shoulder and picking up his coffee and phone. Together, they walk out of the café and toward the flat, and Balthazar’s heart beats a little faster with every step nearer to it.

It’s quiet on the way back. Balthazar almost wishes he could say the same about his thoughts. Kit sighs, and he wonders at the reasons behind it. Kit walks, hands in pockets and eyes on the ground, and Balthazar wonders at the kind of weight he feels on his shoulders.

The weight on Balthazar’s shoulders, the whole year and now, is crushing on the best of days. He can’t bring himself to fathom the weight that accumulates after a hundred lifetimes of love and loss and everything in between.

“I hope you guys are okay,” he says, a bit unnecessarily, when they reach the bottom of the stairs.

Kit shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out, yeah?” He grins, then, tilted. “What’s the worst that could happen? You’ll come in rushing to my rescue at the first signs of danger. I have faith in you.”

Balthazar cracks a smile as they start up the stairs. “You know, I’m not, like, exactly a knight in shining armor type,” he says, “but I can try.”

“Well, you never know,” Kit says, nudging his shoulder. “Some were born great and some achieve greatness and some have it thrust upon them and all that.”

“So I’m none of the above?” Balthazar raises an eyebrow.

Kit laughs, openly and freely. It sends a small shock down Balthazar’s spine to realize it’s been a long time since he’s seen Kit throw his head back like this. “More like all of the above, mate.”

Balthazar unlocks his door with a feeling that almost resembles ease. It occurs to him that walking back to the flat, for some reason, felt a little like walking to his impending doom. He doesn’t know that he felt that way until this moment, the key sliding into the lock with a familiar click, and some irrational fear of the unknowable alleviated by Kit’s reassuring presence. What could he possibly have to fear, at this point? What more is there left to face, now that he knows what he must do? Saying good bye?

Good bye, he thinks, should be easy at this point. He’s been saying good bye all year, hasn’t he?

They walk into the flat, and the first thing that Balthazar notices is how all of his flatmates are circled around the table. They have books and notes out, so they must be studying. The idea that they would study on a Saturday afternoon – together, no less – is startling. After the initial surprise, though, Balthazar finds himself glad, these moments they can find each other and be together. He doesn’t think about standing here, apart from them, and not there, next to them; there is nothing in his heart but peace.

“Balth!” Ben calls from the table. “Wanna join us?”

Peter glances at him and smiles, sideways. “Not that studying for finals is all that interesting, honestly, but…”

Freddie looks up and pauses, visibly surprised. “Oh, hey, Balth,” she says. “I didn’t expect you to be back home yet.”

“Yeah, well,” he says with a shrug, awkward.

She turns to Kit, then, and it might be Balthazar’s imagination, but it seems like something changes in her demeanor, something tightening and tensing in the way she carries herself. “Kit, can we head to my room, I need to talk to you about something urgent,” she says.

Kit shakes his head, graceful. “Can’t stay,” he says. “Promised Boyet I’d be back soon. So, actually, I’d really appreciate it if we could talk out here?”

She purses her lips. “Kit, now’s really not – “

“Yeah, exactly,” he says coolly. “Which is why I’d like to talk out here, thanks.”

“Kit.” Her voice is suddenly and inexplicably tight.

He narrows his eyes, and in that moment, Balthazar realizes that, whatever is going on here, Kit asking Balthazar to walk with him to the flat was no coincidence. Kit did this on purpose; Kit _planned_ this. For what? To protect himself?

The thought, as soon as he has it, is chilling.

“If you can’t say it out here,” Kit says, voice calm as a windless sea, “I ought to head back to work.”

“No!” Freddie’s eyes widen, as if surprised by her own audacity. “I mean – “

At this point, Ben and Peter are looking up from their notes. Freddie notices them staring at her and flushes, looking down at her hands.

“I just – need some time,” she stammers out. “Don’t go.”

“Er, Freddie,” Ben says, brow furrowing, “what’s going on? You’re acting strange.”

“I’m pretty sure this is just how she usually acts, Ben,” Peter says, but the joke sounds stilted, somehow, a bit too intense. Balthazar knows that voice; it’s the voice Peter has when he’s remembering something unpleasant. It’s how he used to sound when he talked about what happened last year. But what could he possibly be remembering?

Freddie glances toward him, hurt flashing in her eyes. “Excuse me, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Kit clears his throat. “You know, I’m only on break for so long – “

Freddie turns back to him quickly. “Don’t go,” she pleads. “This is important – “

“All right, then what is it?” Kit says suddenly, voice raised and impatient. The novelty of Kit yelling, speaking out of turn, even, is enough to cast the flat in silence. Peter and Ben stare at him, openly surprised. Balthazar doesn’t know what they expected, just that it probably wasn’t this.

Freddie stares at him, lips slightly parted in wordless shock. Balthazar notices, with a start, that her hands are trembling.

And, with those trembling fingers, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a metal cross, and holds it out toward Kit with a trembling arm.

Silence.

Kit does not move.

“What is that?” he says, voice level.

“It’s an iron cross,” Freddie answers, words quivering with fright and panic and determination and a myriad of other emotions Balthazar can’t recognize, because the blood is pounding in his ears, because the sight of an iron cross being presented to a faery is the stuff that is made of nightmares, ingrained in his psyche as wrong and horrible and nothing short of persecution; because he can’t breathe, his lungs are stuck, and because he can barely recognize what he himself is feeling.

Kit has become wholly, unnaturally, inhumanly still.

“The fuck does that mean?” Peter says from somewhere behind Freddie, his voice a blurred haze in Balthazar’s ears.

Freddie ignores him. “You can’t touch it,” she says, excited and anticipated and scared and a thousand other things, “can you?”

A pause; a heartbeat passes, another.

“I really ought to be getting back to work,” Kit says finally.

Freddie’s eyes widen again, this time with a disbelieving sort of triumph. Her face hardens, then, determined. Her arm steadies.

“If you leave,” she says, hushed and intense, “I will not hesitate to come after you.”

Kit says nothing, only stares.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” she asks. There’s a gleam in her eyes, wild and dangerous, and Balthazar hasn’t seen that look in months, but god, he hates to see it now, discomfort at the sight of it burning in his gut.

“About what?” Kit answers evenly.

“Oh, for god’s sake, you know what I’m talking about,” she says harshly. “Don’t play the fool.”

“What the _fuck_ is going on?” Ben says, bewilderment written across his face.

Freddie turns to him. There’s no hesitation, this time, when she opens her mouth and drops the truth Balthazar has dreaded her finding from the very start.

“He’s a faery,” Freddie says, spits the word between her teeth, each syllable drowned in a hatred that sends Balthazar’s spine tingling.

“ _What_?”

“Aren’t you?” she turns her gaze back to Kit, wide-eyed. “This whole time we’ve known each other, your strange attitudes toward life, everything. That night we had a movie, the bizarre way you were acting - “

Why, of all times, would Freddie choose now to be right? She’s met other magical beings before - Paige, Chelsey, not to mention Balthazar himself. She’s been to a magical hotspot. She’s lived with Balthazar for almost an entire year and never noticed, never suspected a thing. It’s almost dizzying, how astonishingly horrible her timing is.

Balthazar almost wishes she had noticed before now. Maybe if it was him, he thinks, Kit would be safe. Maybe if it was him they all would be.

“And there’s more,” she continues, voice rising in volume and pitch. “That night you evaded my questions, all the ones that should be easy, you couldn’t tell me how old you are, and then you conveniently disappeared after dinner? You couldn’t even ride in the car after the play was over – “

“I told you, I like walking,” Kit says, calmly. Balthazar cannot fathom how he could possibly be calm in a moment like this, threatened and accused in front of innocents who know nothing, each detail of the situation more horrifying than the last. “That was not a lie.”

“Is it the whole truth?” Freddie counters.

“You seem to know better than I do,” Kit retorts. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Guys, really, this is ridiculous – “ Peter cuts in.

“This doesn’t involve you,” Freddie says, eyes trained on Kit. “This is between me and the faery.”

“See, you call him a faery, but I don’t even see any wings,” Ben asserts. “He’s not even _tiny_.”

“Faeries don’t have to – you know what, never mind,” Freddie grits out, clearly exasperated. “Balthazar, I would appreciate if you could get out of the way. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Balthazar purses his lips. The fear is very present, in his lungs and in his heart and everywhere else inside him, and very real. It almost suffocates his words and the power they could have against tension like this, cutting as it is. Almost.

“But you’re willing to hurt Kit?” he says; to his mild surprise, his voice is steady.

“It’s _not your business_ ,” Freddie says with finality, words so laced with threat they bite under his skin.

“Freddie, don’t you think this is going a bit far – “ Peter’s eyes flicker toward Balthazar, confused and alarmed.

“Stay out of this,” she snaps at Peter. His jaw closes, tight.

“Mate, you don’t have to do this,” Kit says, eyes trained on Freddie. “I didn’t ask you to.”

Balthazar does not speak, or move.

“Okay.” Kit exhales, and Balthazar is stricken, despite himself. It's the first break in his composure, the first sign he's given that he's anything but calm. “What do you want from me?”

“To turn you in,” Freddie says, raising her chin a defiant notch. One fist is clenched at her side, the other still holding the cross out toward Kit, but for all she pretends to be brave, Balthazar knows, truer than anything else about her he’s ever known, that deep inside she’s scared. Of what, he cannot know. But it is there, and it defines her, or at least whatever part of her it is that knows itself as a hunter.

“I won’t go down without a fight,” Kit says. His words are smooth as ever, which even to Balthazar is unsettling. Freddie’s threats, angry and vehement as they are, have an undercurrent of fear she cannot suppress. Kit’s are calm, and level, and thus terrifyingly real.

Freddie’s shoulders shake, ever so slightly; Balthazar doesn’t even know if she herself would notice. “I don’t want to fight you.”

She lowers her arm to her side.

That, of all things, breaks Kit’s careful, stony countenance. His nostrils flare, and when he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically tight. “Then why are you doing this? I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends,” Freddie says, faint, “but I just – “

“I became your friend despite knowing you were a hunter, despite all the best of my instincts,” Kit continues, relentless, “because when I met you, I saw something good in you, and fragile. I thought you were just doing it for your parents. I thought you could change.” He snorts, then, harshly bitter. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Kit, please,” Freddie says, frantic, “please understand – “

“Understand _what_?” he nearly shouts, and Balthazar flinches back, startled that Kit is capable of such frustration. But, of course, he must, because even someone who has lived across whole ages has finite patience.

“I _am_ doing this for my parents!” Freddie yells back.

Balthazar is aware, now, painfully so, of the sound and feeling of his breath in and out of his lungs, ragged in his ears.

“What?” Kit says, dangerously quiet.

“They gave me a deadline,” she says, eyes shining in the light and tremors like small earthquakes in her voice, and it’s only then that Balthazar realizes she’s been on the verge of tears this whole time.

“Go on,” Kit says flatly.

“End of this year,” Freddie says. Her words tumble out in a rush. “One hunt, just _one_ , and they’ll keep on paying for my tuition. And if I don’t – if I don’t, I’m a disgrace to my family. They - they’ve been threatening to disown me, this whole year.”

Kit stares, wordless, jaw clenching and unclenching. What must he be thinking? What must he think of a girl who must choose between her family and her friends, and who has chosen to resolve that choice in the most awful of ways? Balthazar barely knows what he thinks. It reminds him too much of himself to know what he should think.

“I’ve been - this whole year, I’ve been dealing with my parents criticizing me, and schoolwork, and not even being good enough to do my job…” Freddie inhales sharply. “I keep on guessing wrong, I keep on putting people I care about, _innocent_ people, in harm’s way, for no reason except my own damned incompetence - “

Inadvertently, almost impulsively, Balthazar glances at Peter. He looks floored, almost perplexed by what Freddie is saying. Balthazar can’t even think about the reasons why, Freddie’s candor is so overwhelming.

“And then,” Freddie says, looking at Kit, markedly unhappy, “there’s you. I finally get you right, for once in my life. For once, I finally feel like I have some control over what my job, what I was born to do. And you’re _strong_ , Kit. You’re the strongest person I know. You could withstand anything.”

At that, Kit looks utterly taken aback. Balthazar has seen mild surprise across his face, or vague interest. What must it take to shake someone as stonily unshakeable as Kit? How significant must this moment be, for everyone involved?

“I’m sorry,” Freddie says. She looks down at the ground, misery written in the set of her shoulders. “I didn’t – I don’t want to do this, Kit. But I had to try. I just – “

“It’s your family.” There are no rises or falls in his voice that Balthazar can detect, no mountains or hills.

Freddie nods.

“ _Shit_ ,” Kit breathes. Something’s changed, something almost imperceptible in the set of his shoulders and the tone of his voice. Balthazar doesn’t know what it is, can’t fathom what Kit is thinking, but he knows it must have the heaviness of a thousand lifetimes behind it.

What Kit looks like now, Balthazar thinks, is tired. He must be so tired.

“You’re wrong, Freddie,” Kit says. “I can’t withstand everything.”

Freddie glances back up at him, eyes huge. She must be feeling what Balthazar feels sometimes in Kit’s presence too, an impossibly long history he will never know, can never know.

Kit breathes in, and out. Another breath, in and out, and then his shoulders still.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Freddie gapes at him. “What?”

“I won’t fight.” Kit smiles without humor. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

There is something very old in Kit’s eyes, very old and tired and resolute. Kit has lived long enough to make the kind of decisions he will never go back on.

Balthazar realizes, with sharp and thorny dread, that Kit will be taken. He will be captured and dragged to somewhere no one else will know or follow, and he will die, or something unfathomably worse.

He will go alone.

Kit has lived long enough to become completely and utterly alone, to become entirely at peace with the fact, and yet to dream of the possibility of something – _anything_ – else regardless.

Kit will go of his own will, all because the only thing he ever wanted was a real friend.

“Kit,” Freddie starts, hesitantly.

“Freddie,” Balthazar cuts in.

He can feel everyone’s heads snap toward him. He hasn’t spoken in so long, probably none of them expected him to. But if he was going to stand by and just watch this happen, he wouldn’t still be standing by Kit’s side.

“Balthazar,” Kit says, weary, “you really, _really_ don’t have to do this.”

But the thing is, Balthazar has spent years standing by, smiling and nodding as dozens and hundreds of people he met slandered his people, spread rumors and falsities that he could brush off, letting them accumulate somewhere under his ribcage until it all became too heavy for him to ignore anymore, inevitably. He stood by when Claudio and Peter, last year, became infected with the poisonous ideas that almost tore their group apart. He stood by when Hero was attacked at her party, the screams and the tears and, after, the deafening silence that shook the very walls. He stood by when Peter denounced magic and then gave it up, because he hurt too much to do anything else, and because Balthazar was too much of a coward to help.

The thing is, Balthazar is tired, too. Balthazar is tired of the lies. Balthazar is tired of the silence.

He’s so tired.

“You can’t take Kit,” Balthazar says, pushing all of the power he can into his voice, no matter how much it exhausts him, because the tension is so thick he almost can’t breathe, and all he’s ever wanted was not to drown.

Freddie blinks at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

“Because,” Balthazar says, every syllable draining at his energy, every second the desperate hope that this will work crackling in his veins, that this will all _stop_ if he tries hard enough, “because Kit’s just a disgraced member of the fae.”

Kit is staring at him, now, and though he says nothing he doesn’t need to. Balthazar can see it all in his eyes - the _what are you doing?_ and _why are you doing this?_ and _do you know that you’re making the biggest mistake of your life?_ \- clearer than he’s ever seen him express anything.

But Balthazar has already made big mistakes in his short lifetime, huge, cataclysmic; this one, comparatively, isn’t even that much worse.

Peter shakes his head furiously. “I don’t - _what_?”

“Why would that even matter?” Ben says, frowning.

“And how would you even know something like that?” Freddie demands.

Balthazar sees, for a wildly lucid second, how this must look to his human friends. The utter absurdity of the situation, the sheer unlikelihood, of someone they’ve lived with for a whole year and known for longer, who’s never expressed an opinion about magic, never even showed any interest, coming out and spouting claims he can’t even concretely support. If he were any of them, even if he was a believer, ‘confused’ would probably be a vast understatement of how he’d feel about it.

But there’s no way to communicate any of this without being abrupt, or nonsensical. There’s no way to ease into something this significant, this integral to his life, his existence. And now that he’s here, the desire - the compulsion, really; the _need_ \- to see this through to the end is impossible to ignore.

Funny, how the moment he can’t take the lies anymore is also a moment of the gravest danger. Funny how the time he decides to tell the truth is also the time he must leave.

“I’m an elf,” he says, gravity and power coursing through his words. “I’m an elven prince.”

The words come out easier than he expected. They were buried for so long, he almost expected he’d have to drag them out of his gut. But telling the truth, as it turns out, once you get past the effort of building yourself up enough to say it, is as easy as telling someone your name.

For two blissful seconds, the silence in the flat is tranquil, almost peaceful. As the words settle, there is peace to be found in the quiet, even if it is just for a moment.

And then the hold that Balthazar’s powers had on them fizzles, and the tension bursts through, full force.

“Balthazar, what the hell are you talking about?” Peter says, shell-shocked. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Balthazar smiles at him, weakly. “Why would I joke about this?”

“Or delusional, or – or self-sacrificing,” Peter says, hysteria creeping into his words.

“But – “ Freddie pulls at her hair agitatedly. “How do I know you’re telling the truth, how do I know you’re not just trying to – “

“Every time I speak,” Balthazar says, and he doesn’t let up on his power, can’t, even as he feels his limbs grow heavier and the pain growing between the walls of his skull, “for a second, just half a moment, you feel calm. Don’t you?”

A pause.

“What does that have anything to do with anything?” Peter asks angrily; the tension rears its ugly head again.

“That’s me,” Balthazar says, pushing. “I can help the tension, the anger. I can soothe it.”

“That’s not _proof_ ,” Freddie insists, crossing her arms.

“After school, back in Auckland,” Balthazar tries, he’s trying, he’s trying so hard but the tension in the room is escalating, and it is horrifically close to becoming overwhelming, there’s barely anything he can do about it at this point, “Ben, Pete, you never dropped me off at a house, right?”

“Family troubles – “ Peter stutters out.

“And then I’d disappear for weeks at a time, with no explanation. I always left my guitars at Ursula’s house.”

“This is fucking insane,” Peter says shakily. “How can you be anything but – “ He breaks off with a sharp exhale, unable to finish his sentence.

 _Human_. Balthazar can finish it for him, in his thoughts.

“If you could just let me explain…” Balthazar says, tired, more tired than he’s been his whole life, but he keeps on going, he _must_ , because this has to end somehow; he cannot let Kit do this by himself.

“Balthazar, forget it, it’s not worth it,” Kit says, jaw tight. “Just let it go. You don’t have to – forget what I said earlier. This is my battle.”

“This is mine too,” Balthazar insists, words draining slowly but surely at his energy. “It’s been my battle for years.”

“Well, in that case, I’ve got centuries on you, haven’t I,” Kit snaps. “ _Let it go.”_

“I can’t,” Balthazar says, quietly, desperately; surely that much, at least, they can understand.

“Okay, fine, say you are an elf prince,” Freddie interrupts. “I’m not – first of all, how could you _hide that_ for a _whole year,_ that’s just not possible – but say that you are. Why the _fuck_ would I turn you in?”

“Why would you turn Kit in?” Balthazar points out, feeling dangerously close to laughing for no sensible reason. This is maddening, indescribably so; how can Freddie say the words she’s saying without even realizing how horrid they sound? “Why are we in this mess in the first place?”

“But – “ Freddie sputters, red-faced. “Where’s the proof? I mean - you’re not dangerous, Balth - “

“How do you know?” Balthazar says, irritation flaring up at the unfairness of such a statement. “How can you say you know a thing about me?”

The silence the room falls into is almost numb. It dawns on Balthazar, a second too late, when he looks at Peter, dumbfounded and awestruck but most of all _hurt_ , what that question really implies.

Maybe this is all he needed to make them believe him in the first place.

The thing is, though, maybe there’s a reason he didn’t say anything before. He would have gladly spent all of his time in the human world keeping his friends in ignorance, just so they wouldn’t hurt like this. Just so they wouldn’t hurt and then try to help him. Because the only person who can make this choice, to stay or to go, is him.

And yet - he realizes with dread, with horror, with cold thrill - if they really, truly believe him, if Freddie believes him, it won’t _be_ his choice anymore.

“Okay,” he says, slowly, heavily. “I get it now.”

More silence, and more confusion. That’s not anything Balthazar can help.

“If you won’t turn me in, you have to let Kit go,” Balthazar says. There are spots across his vision, now, colorful. He presses forward. “It’s neither of us… or it’s both of us.”

For one blissful moment, before his words sink in, no one says a thing, uncomprehending.

And then things click into place, the horror dawning almost tangible, and the room explodes into mayhem.

“Balthazar, what the hell – “

“Mate, the _fuck_ are you thinking – “

“What the fuck is going _on_ – “

“Please,” Balthazar says, edges of his vision flickering, “Just – “

“ _Balthazar_.”

The word cuts across the noise, pierces Balthazar’s heart like a javelin. He looks across the room, eyes connecting with Peter’s, who’s standing up now for some reason Balthazar can’t think of, hands motionless by his sides. There’s a look in his eyes Balthazar recognizes, the familiarity as deep as an instinct, a knowledge so visceral he has no words to describe it. All he can think is that whatever Peter feels, whatever it is that’s making his heart beat fast and his breath short, is what Balthazar feels too; he knows it as well as he knows neither of them should.

Everyone else is still speaking, shouting, but in this moment, eyes locked with Peter’s, the whole world feels frozen, and still, and quiet.

The front door crashes open.

He spins around, startled out of his reverie. Standing in the threshold, framed by the sunlight, is Rosa, his sister, the last person he’d expect to see here and yet somehow also the first, fire in her stance and murder in her eyes.

“Balthazar,” she says, the rumble of a storm behind her words, “what are you _doing_?”

The wave of anger and disapproval and agitation that comes off of her, completely new and unexpected, is what does it. The straw on the camel’s back, as humans say.

“Rosa,” he says, and he can’t control the power that trickles into his words in a weak attempt to combat the onslaught of new tension, even though he has no more of it, even though she’s the last person he’d want to use it on. His knees buckle, which is strange because that’s not what they’re supposed to do, and his vision flickers again as he falls to the ground, except this time when it turns to black, it stays that way.

The last thing he hears before the darkness is his name. He doesn’t know who says it, and he doesn’t know if it’s whispered, or screamed, or something in between. Soon after, he knows nothing at all.

 

 

_The strange thing about the human world, Balthazar thinks, is how happy they are. They go about their lives in moments of unadulterated emotion-- joy and pain and combinations of both permeating their every actions and reactions. Events like sports games, especially, are overcome with displays of unadulterated emotion._

_Rosa appears in Balthazar’s life for the first time in over a year at the tail end of a soccer game, and he feels like that may be significant._

_He’s sitting with Ursula, not really paying attention to the bundle of sweating humans running around and shouting at each other. The atmosphere is dripping with tension, curling around everyone watching and participating, but there’s a lightness to it. There is determination and enjoyment and excitement in it, too, so if he keeps his head down and his fingers running over his guitar, he can ignore it._

_Ursula doesn’t look up from her book, except when someone scores; this is how they have become friends, despite her being in a different grade. He plays guitar and she reads, sometimes aloud, and they are calm together. In all the frenetic energy of humanity, beautiful as it is, it is nice to find someone who prefers the quiet, even if it’s just for a few moments a week._

_Balthazar picks through the song he’s working on, trying out a few chords over the roar of the other students. He frowns, tries another progression, plays it through a couple of times._

_“Hey, Urs,” he says, nudging her. She looks up, blinking. “Can you listen to this for me?”_

_“Sure, no problem.” Ursula closes her book and scoots closer, his soft strums barely carrying even through the few centimetres between them. Scrunching her nose, she nods. “I like it. I’m not really one for music, though, and it’s a bit hard to hear.”_

_“Thanks.”_

_They fall back into comfortable silence, and Balthazar lets his playing wash out the ever-increasing volume of the crowd. He only knows the game ends by the sudden rise and release of tension, and he still hasn’t figured out the verse. It’s not as if Balthazar has anything pressing to do._

_After a few moments, he looks up at Ursula, whose attention has fallen away from the book and is fixed, instead, on a blonde girl in her grade, celebrating enthusiastically. A soft smile plays on Ursula’s lips._

_“If you’d rather go to her, I’m good on my own,” he tells her, and Ursula turns to him._

_“No, it’s fine; I’m going over to her house later.” She opens her book again, and he plays through what he has so far. When he looks up again, she’s dividing her attention between the pages and the girl. “She’s one of my best friends.”_

_Balthazar nods. He’s been in the human realms for a year and a half already, and the concept of friendship is much more complicated than in the elven realms. Still, he thinks that Ursula is his best friend. His only close friend, really, but his best friend nonetheless. “Is—” he begins, and stops. An all-too familiar voice strains over the sounds of the dissipating crowd._

_“—I’m Rosa. Rosa Jones. That was a brilliant game.”_

_Balthazar can’t even begin to fathom why Rosa would be **here** , in the human realms, after all the warnings she’s given him. The voices quiet, then, and a group of students walk past, discussing players and strategies loudly._

_“Are you okay?” Ursula asks._

_“Um,” says Balthazar. Do his parents want him back in the elven realms for good? Is there something wrong? Did **he** do something wrong? “I’m fine. I heard my sister talking, is all. She seems to have come down for a visit.”_

_Ursula frowns, then nods, brow smoothing. “I can go find Hero, now, if you want to catch up with her.”_

_Hero must be the blonde girl. “Sure, go ahead.”_

_“See you around, Balthazar,” Ursula smiles, pushing herself to her feet._

_“See you.”_

_Balthazar strums a chord lightly. He should really get up, find Rosa. If she’s bearing bad news, it’s best to get it over with._

_He doesn’t._

_Balthazar is almost halfway through the chorus when a shadow falls over him. “And this is Stanley Jones, the grade’s resident musician…”_

_Balthazar looks up. Rosa is smirking down at him, accompanied by one of the players: Peter Donaldson, or maybe Pedro. He’s sporting a truly awful mullet and a wide grin, sports uniform damp from sweat._

_“Balthazar,” Rosa greets. “Fancy seeing you here.”_

_“Rosa,” Balthazar returns, even though all he really wants to do is hug her. It’s something that’s happened probably a total of five times in his life, but he hasn’t seen her in over a year. Surely that would warrant a hug._

_“Oh,” says Pedro. “‘Balthazar’? You two know each other?”_

_Balthazar turns to him, lie ready on his tongue. “Balthazar is my middle name,” he explains. “And Rosa is my sister.” That, at least, is not a lie._

_“Oh,” Pedro says again. There is something wonderfully human in that, in repetition, in loss of words and imperfect language. “That’s cool. I was just giving her a tour. If you’re cool to take over, though…”_

_Balthazar isn’t sure which side won, but the triumphant gleam lingering in Pedro’s eyes hints at the answer. There might be a party on, or something of the like. There are so many traditions held by different people, in ways and for reasons so different to the elves that it makes Balthazar’s head spin._

_“Yeah, sure,” he answers with a smile._

_“Thanks, bro!” With a jaunty salute to Rosa, Pedro jogs off toward a cluster of his teammates._

_Rosa watches him leave. “Well,” she says. “Humans never cease to amaze me.”_

_Balthazar hides his grin by ducking his head. When he looks up, Rosa is staring at him. “How are you?” he asks her._

_She shrugs. “Well enough. I’ve just wrapped up some difficult negotiations with trespassing pixies, so I’m ready to sleep for at least a millennium.”_

_He nods, and plays a chord with restless hands. Rosa’s eyebrows creep toward her hairline._

_“When did you learn an instrument?” she asks._

_His hands still. “Um.”_

_She shakes her head, sighs. “If mother and father find out…”_

_“I know. I’m keeping my instruments at school or at a friend’s.”_

_“Instruments? The human world is corrupting you already.” There’s a laugh behind her words; it’s the closest he’s ever heard to flat-out hilarity, from her._

_Balthazar lets himself laugh, pretends not to notice her shocked glance. “The evil music class,” he says, “tempting innocents with gleaming French horns and well-tuned pianos.”_

_“Watch out for the violas.”_

_They fall into silence. It isn’t quite the comfortable silence of he and Ursula during the football game—there are too many underlying questions and missed conversations for that—but it isn’t **uncomfortable** either, in the way that no silence between close siblings can ever be uncomfortable._

_After a few minutes, Rosa clears her throat. “You’ve acclimatised to this world rather well,” she ventures. “If I were a human, I’d be hard-pressed to imagine you weren’t.”_

_Balthazar frowns. “Is that good?” he asks. If he’s settling in, he can blend with them and learn better._

_Rosa shrugs. “Depends. Do you remember your duties?”_

_“How could I forget?” He forces himself to smile, knows that Rosa can see through it without effort. “Is that why you’re here? To remind me?”_

_Rosa’s eyebrows furrow. “Can’t I visit my little brother simply because I wish to?”_

_He swallows, lets his words sit in his mouth heavily. “You haven’t for a while,” he says, and hopes desperately it doesn’t sound like condemnation._

_To his relief, she only sighs. “I know,” she nods. “I know; it’s not right.”_

_He doesn’t ask, **then why don’t you**? Her reasons are her own to share._

_Rosa sighs again, shakes her head. “How about we go for coffee to make up for it? My treat.”_

_“I have class—”_

_“Taken care of.” She waves a hand dismissively, then stands. “Come on, Balth.”_

_He takes her proffered hand. “Let me just put this in the music room.”_

_Balthazar wonders, as he makes his way up from the field to the class, what her history with the human realms is. All her tales of the centuries before he was born concern places, never beings. There is a caution, somehow, in the way she sidesteps around certain topics like they’re diseased. Perhaps she had a less than pleasant experience with humans; it’s not unheard of, in the magicals that actually have anything to do with them._

**_Still_ ** _, he thinks, passing students in the hall and watching them smile at each other, bright and happy and real, **humans can’t be too terrible**. They are beautiful, and idealistic, and magical beings have always had more power. What could they ever do to hurt him, really?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some [gorgeous](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145099469303/hes-a-faery-freddie-says-spits-the-word) [edits](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145101414136/if-you-wont-turn-me-in-you-have-to-let-kit-go) by the astounding [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	17. Chapter 16 - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so we didn't mean for this to happen again. The word count got away from us and, before we knew it, half a chapter was the size of a normal one. Oops?

When Balthazar wakes, all is quiet.

He is in his own bed, tucked under the covers like it isn’t almost summer, and the room is peaceful and still. His eyelids are heavy, and a part of him aches to curl back into the mattress and not face the world for at least another few hours. But—

But the last thing he remembers is standing in the living room, shouting loud in his ears and thrumming under his skin. The last thing he remembers is fury and betrayal and revulsion, Peter’s horrified eyes and Freddie’s hard lines and Ben’s confusion and Kit’s resignation and Rosa’s fury. He remembers  _ telling them. _

The idea of simply staying in bed is rapidly becoming more appealing.

A soft knock on the door challenges that plan. He swallows, sits, manages to croak, “Yes?”

“It’s Paige and Chelsey.” The door opens, just enough for the two girls to slip through before they close it again. When did they arrive?

“They called us after you passed out,” Paige answers his unspoken question. “I—We thought it would be best if the two of us saw you first. Calming effects and all that.”

“Oh,” he says. He considers the different questions flying through his brain. “Do they know? About you two?”

Chelsey nods. “I think they were in shock. They didn’t put up a fuss about anything at all.” She glances at her girlfriend, then, “Can we sit down? Paige is feeling a bit faint.”

He scrambles to make room, sitting up properly as Paige gives her girlfriend a grateful peck on the cheek. “I’m sorry.”

Paige smiles at him, warm and still. “For what?”

Balthazar thinks,  _ everything _ . “Forcing you to tell them. Telling them myself; not being careful.” Then again, he isn’t sorry about that. There is nothing that could make him regret defending Kit from a too-short future, alone and in pain. “Forcing you to tell them,” he repeats, amending, and leaves it at that.

“You didn’t force us to do anything. Rosa called us—you can blame her if you want, though I really doubt you would—and said you’d passed out, and that you’d probably rather someone around who wasn’t furious.” At that, guilt stabs at his stomach and curls around his throat.  _ Rosa _ . She’d been ready to go home, and he’d thrown that away. She has a right to be furious.

“Hey,” Chelsey says, and Paige places her hand over his reassuringly.  _ Peace _ . “She called, so we came. And she only called because she was worried out of her mind. You silly elf, have you forgotten that we love you?”

Balthazar’s breath catches. He doesn’t think he’s heard those words from anyone but Paige and Chelsey in years. Maybe ever. It’s been implied, certainly, and he knows his friends  _ do _ love him, but it’s nice to hear the words. “I love you, too,” he manages, because he should be leaving soon; because he is drained and he is done. Why should he try to protect his heart now, when he has already pulled down all his defences and thrown it on the ground for all to poke at?

Paige smiles again. “Good,” she says, “because this might have gotten a little awkward, otherwise.”

“Just a bit,” Balthazar smiles back, and it’s shaky and weak but it’s there. They fall into silence, and Balthazar lets himself glance toward the door, the last line of defence between he and the rest of the flat.

“They’re waiting out there,” Chelsey says, following his movement. “To speak to you. There were lots of tearful conversations. Probably a shouting match or three, before we arrived.”

“Um,” he says. “They weren’t—how furious were they?”

Paige’s hand tightens around his.

“Incredibly, then.” It’s a poor attempt at humour, and none of them laugh.

“They were more hurt than anything,” Paige says, and there is a deep sorrow in her voice. She probably felt it all, layers upon layers of confusion and anger and betrayal. “Freddie is…conflicted. Ben is confused. Kit is guilty. Rosa is worried. Peter…” She lets the name hang in the air, tantalising and damning. “Peter doesn’t know what to feel.”

“Oh,” says Balthazar. He thinks of all that is unsaid between all of them, the quiet moments and the soft smiles and all that they cannot have. Should not have. “What about you?” he asks. “What do you feel?”

Chelsey considers for a moment. “I’m worried,” she says. “Scared; I don’t want to lose you.” He thinks, terribly,  _ maybe it will be practice _ .

Paige shrugs. “I’m overwhelmed by everyone else’s emotions at the moment. There’s lots of pain and confusion. Some of it might be mine. It’s…difficult, sometimes. To tell.”

Balthazar’s throat aches. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I know—I know you love me, but that doesn’t make it alright. I’ve hurt you.”

He should have  _ thought _ . He shouldn’t have been so selfish in it; yes, it was for Kit, but it was for him. It damned him and provided him a solution in the same terrifying moment.

Paige rests her head on his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, just lets the warmth bleed between them. Chelsey, on her other side, smiles at him.

“At least none of us hate you,” she offers. “Those are all people that love you as much as we do.”

“Yeah,” he nods, and swallows. “I know.” He  _ does _ , and that’s what makes it so terrible, that he’s going to have to go out there and  _ leave _ , either with Rosa or with Freddie. That will be their last impression of him, the awful sensation of finding out he’s been lying all along.  _ It might have even been better _ , he thinks, miserable,  _ if I had left without a goodbye _ . Here, they have only unforgiving truth.

“Good,” Chelsey murmurs, and leans into her girlfriend.

Balthazar doesn’t let the silence stretch out, just pushes his words into the air between them. “I still have to go, when Rosa goes.” He considers the next sentence briefly, coated in guilt and sickening hope. “Going with Freddie would have meant I didn’t.” It would have been so much worse, he knows; he should be furious with Freddie, and yet—

The weight of his parents’ stares, their expectations and mandates, sit heavy on him. If he refuses them, he’ll never see any of his people again. Can he really fault Freddie, when she sits so snugly in the same boat?

“Is that what you want?” Paige asks. “The not going, not the going with Freddie.”

Balthazar swallows, leans into her. He wonders what the time is, if he’d been unconscious for more than just a few hours. He wonders, again, what the others are thinking, somewhere in the depths of the flat. He opens his mouth, closes it.  _ Does it matter?  _ he wants to asks, but the question sticks to the back of his tongue and cleaves it to the roof of his mouth. Balthazar doesn’t answer.

“Okay,” Paige sighs. She squeezes his hand again. “We’ll sit with you until you’re ready to go.”

It takes him a moment to realise she means to talk to the others, rather than with Rosa. “I should probably go now,” he says. The more he delays, the more it festers.

Chelsey shifts so that she’s sitting up properly, Paige doing the same a moment later. “Remember what I said, Balthazar,” she tells him, serious. “It’s not easy. It hurts. But any decision you make will, at this point.” She looks at her girlfriend, tenderness clear in every line of her face, then back at Balthazar. “Maybe—I know it seems easier at this point, to leave things as they are. But, Balthazar, they love you  _ so much _ . They deserve an explanation.”

He looks down at his hands, unable to meet their eyes. “I know.”

“Hey.” Her voice is soft, again. “It might not look like it, but it’s worth it.”

“Really,” Paige adds, when Balthazar doesn’t look up. “From the perspective of the one with the shorter lifespan—it’s worth it. It’s painful, sure; I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for Chels.” She pauses, and Balthazar sees her reach across and rub her girlfriend’s knee fondly. “But we love each other, yeah? We love each other, and that’s what matters.”

He swallows, murmurs, “We should go.” He forces himself out of his bed, closes his eyes through the wave of dizziness—how long  _ had _ he been unconscious? —and turns back to them. “Thank you.” In the last few months, Paige and Chelsey have been there for him for his worst moments and his best.

There is a reason he’d tried not to love them; now he has to lose them, too.

“Of course,” Paige says, and leans on Chelsey when she stands. “Are you ready?”

Balthazar shrugs and opens the door.

He isn’t quite sure what he expected, but he’s still a bit startled to find only a few people milling about the main room. Though he doesn’t know why he thought he’d find everyone there; surely they have better things to do with their time than to wait for him.

It’s more subdued than he thought it might be, too. The last thing he remembers is mayhem and loud noises, tension that sliced at his concentration and suffocated him like a heavy blanket, and pain; pain in eyes and faces and voices, pain in everything. It’s hard to reconcile that image, particularly when his flatmates have never been the kind of people to sustain shock in silence, with the flat now - not empty but almost unbearably quiet, because it’s not like the tension has vanished, either, it’s not like he can’t feel it lingering in the walls and the floorboards like a silent ghost. Ben and Freddie are nowhere to be found, but Kit and Rosa are sitting next to each other at the table, leaning in close and whispering in low, terse voices, coffee cups at their elbows.

He sweeps the room with his gaze, barely conscious of the fact that he’s looking for something, someone. When it lands on Peter, sitting on the couch with his fists clenched on his knees, the rush of relief and dread that floods his insides is dizzying and sickening all at once.

Rosa sees him first, eyes flickering up the second his door opened. She stops speaking midsentence, and does not look away from him..

“Balthazar,” she says. Her voice isn’t angry or vengeful like he’d been afraid of, but there’s an underlying current of something tempestuous behind it, barely restrained, that is a little terrifying.

At the sound of her voice, Balthazar can see Peter’s shoulders tense up, just a half second before his head twists around. Their eyes meet, because this whole time Balthazar hasn’t been able to look away from the back of his head, and when Peter turns and their gazes hook on each other, something inside Balthazar freezes, and he finds himself motionless.

Abruptly, Peter stands and faces him. Balthazar’s breath hitches in his throat, taken off guard, wildly conflicted between the part of him that yearns to keep on looking at Peter and never stop, and the part of him that wants nothing more than to push him away. In the end he does nothing; Peter’s stare is utterly paralyzing. The expression in his eyes is so unreadable, Balthazar almost can’t stand it. He does not look away.

A moment, perhaps more than that, frozen in time; silence that rings dully in his ears, heart stuck in his chest.

Then –

“You’re okay,” Peter breathes.

“Sure,” Balthazar says, with a weak smile.

Something like pain twinges across Peter’s face, and Balthazar regrets his answer immediately, regrets not doing everything in his power to assure the people he cares about that he’s okay, that they don’t have to worry about them. Never mind that he’s spent who knows how long unconscious. Never mind that he’s spent the whole year, his whole life, chafing under a truth he could never tell, except for in the most desperate and horrible of circumstances.

“Balth – “ Peter manages to get out, strangled.

It’s his fault, once more, that Peter’s like this. It’s his fault that everything’s turned to shit. He says the only thing he can to try to begin to make up for it, though he knows he’ll never be able to.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Peter’s face crumples, then, and Balthazar hates it, he hates that Peter could ever look like that, that anything Balthazar said could ever make him look like that.

“Shit, Balth.” Peter exhales. “I just – I can’t fucking do this right now.”

His gut turns to ice. “Pete – “

“This is just.” Defeat, disbelief, everything in between. “Too fucking much. I don’t know what to think.”

“Peter,” Balthazar says, cold inside, “you don’t have to – “

Rosa rises slowly from her seat, and gracefully. “Maybe you should take a walk,” she says to Peter, uncharacteristically gently. “Clear your thoughts. You’ve waited here long enough, you know he’s okay… You should take some time to sort out your head.”

Peter tears his gaze away from Balthazar, finally, and turns it on Rosa. “I can’t just – “

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. “I don’t think anyone’s going to be leaving before you have time to get back. Tell you what, I’ll come with you. You can tell me all about it.”

Peter snorts. It’s a miserable noise that cuts at Balthazar’s heart, his insides. “What’s there to tell? I, apparently, don’t have  _ shit _ compared to - to some people.”

Balthazar swallows past the lump in his throat. “Peter…”

Rosa looks at him sternly. “You should talk later,” she says firmly, in command, just like she always is, just like she always has been. “You both need the space.”

Balthazar rubs at his arm and says nothing. She’s right, probably. He’s only been awake for a few minutes and he already wants to lie back down, the sheer unhappiness in the room overwhelming.

Peter glances at Balthazar one last time, looks away. “All right,” he says dully. “Let’s go.”

Rosa walks toward Peter, seems to think better of it, and turns back to Balthazar.

“We’ll talk later, too,” she says. It’s not a question, but it’s not a command, either. There’s no harshness to her voice. That, in itself, makes something painful swell in his chest.

“Yeah,” he says. “We should.”

She nods once. “I’m not angry at you, Balthazar,” she says. “I hope you know that.”

Before he can answer, she moves to the door and beckons for Peter to follow. He feels, a little, like he’s been punched in the gut, if only because that’s the last thing he ever expected to hear from anyone, least of all from Rosa herself.

Swallowing down his feelings, Balthazar turns his attention to Kit, who meets his gaze levelly. He looks exhausted, mostly, but also unperturbed. Before – Balthazar hates to think of what happened before he passed out, but it’s necessary to do so when he was so deeply involved – he’d been agitated, deeply upset. Now he’s calm as ever, immovable as a mountain.

Someone behind him reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. He feels just a little quieter inside, a little more at peace; it must be Paige.

“You ought to have your space,” she says. “Chels and I can go in the kitchen.”

Balthazar nods. Once they’ve taken their leave, he walks over to the table and sits down heavily next to Kit, already tired on his feet.

“Where’s Ben and Freddie?” he asks. “Should I, uh… should I be worried?”

“She’s not going to do anything to us, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kit says. “Everyone agreed to a sort of truce for the day.”

Balthazar stares at him. “Really? She just – agreed to that?”

“Didn’t really seem like any of us had that much of a choice.”

There is not much that can be done, probably, when the person who causes all the worry and confusion and pain and everything else becomes unconscious. Balthazar has no one but himself, really, to blame. The familiar pang of guilt washes over him, heavy and a little nauseating.

“And the rules?” he asks.

Kit shrugs. “Think those basically nosedived out the window when she accused me. The lot of you have better things to be thinking about than  _ rules _ , don’t you think?”

Not that they had ever been all that important in the grand scheme of things, aside from the constant reminder that Balthazar isn’t human, that he isn’t one of them, no matter how hard he pretends or wants to believe otherwise. Not that they had ever mattered to anyone but him.

Though, as soon as he has the thought, he knows that of course it’s not true. They mattered to Freddie too much. And they affected all of them, in small and bruising ways. It’s not fair to think he was the only one who chafed under the rules.

“Right,” he says.

“I am glad you’re all right, mate,” Kit says, clapping a hand on his shoulder and sounding sincere. “You’ve been out a while.”

_ All right _ , Balthazar thinks, might be a bit of an overstatement.

“Dare I ask how long?” he says, dreadfully curious about how long the flat’s been in this strange and awful state of limbo.

“Oh, three, maybe four hours? I guess you must have been under a lot of stress.”

Shit, but four hours is a long time to be worrying about someone, at least for humans, and sometimes even for those who are not. He doesn’t want to know how long they’ve been waiting for him, how long Rosa and Kit have been exchanging fearful expressions over cooling cups of coffee, how long Peter’s been sitting there, waiting, waiting…

“You know, your sister is pretty impressive,” Kit says, leaning back in his seat and looking at him appraisingly. “I can see where you get it from.”

Impressive is not exactly the word he’d use to describe himself, but Balthazar lets it slide. “What’d she do this time?”

Kit shakes his head with a laugh. “Well, I mean, you’d think with how angry she was when she came in it’d only worsen the situation, but she leapt to your side – literally leapt, I’ve never seen anyone move that fast, and I’ve seen quite a lot in my time – and caught you before you even hit the ground. And then when everyone was still, like, recovering from the shock of seeing _that_ , she said, in this real commanding voice, like – “ Kit’s voice shifts into a passable impression of Rosa’s voice, though Balthazar imagines what really happened probably involved a great deal more righteous fury “ – ‘What the hell are you idiots doing just _standing_ there?’”

Balthazar lets himself laugh, though it comes out a bit weak. “That’s such a Rosa thing to do, you know?”

“Yeah, I gathered.” Kit sips from his coffee and grimaces. “Ah shit, it’s cold now.”

“Gross.” Balthazar thinks, for a moment. “I feel like I should place bets on, like, how many fights were started while I was out? But then that’d probably make me a terrible person.”

“Fewer than you’d think, I’d bargain.” Kit places his cup back on the table. “I was surprised, too. I was anticipating more. Ready for more, even. ‘Specially from Freddie, you know? But I guess we just had this unspoken agreement that we probably shouldn’t be in the same room right then, and she ducked into her room with Ben fairly soon after we’d made sure you were okay. Or, well, I guess as okay as you could have been, at the time.”

Balthazar closes his eyes. “I hate the thought that I left everyone so – “ Angry? Frustrated? Confused? Hurt? What word encompasses the magnitude of what he did?

“No reason to feel guilty about it. It’s not like you had any control over losing consciousness.”

“I guess.” He opens his eyes and glances at Kit out of the corner of his eye. “I am sorry I left you to deal with this shit on your own, though.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Kit glances back. “Nothing Rosa didn’t help with, either.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, she was actually pretty huge in getting things, like, manageable again. Guess that’s just something that comes with being royalty. Being in command.”

Balthazar, for one, has never felt used to being in command, or being royalty, for that matter. Rosa wears the crown far better than him. It’s discomfiting for him to be in a position to tell others what they should or shouldn’t do. It feels wrong, against the things he stands for, even though he knows that, really, the things he stands for should simply be everything his family stands for.

And that, of course, is what has always made this so hard - knowing that he is not the person others want him to be or think he is. His family mistook him for a prince worthy of a throne; his friends mistook him for a human. How he managed to deceive either of them, really, is anyone’s guess.

Which begs the question - who is he, really, if he’s not either of those things? He’s not sure he quite knows himself, after all this time.

“And she said a lot of good things, too,” Kit is saying, his words shaking Balthazar out of his reverie. “To me, I mean. While we were waiting. Interesting person to talk to, at least.”

Balthazar wonders, for a brief moment, what they spoke of. Though it is, of course, no one’s business but theirs.

“Yeah, I can believe that,” he says.

He looks over at Kit again, in closer detail this time. He wonders how close to the truth his first impression of how Kit feels, of calm and smoothness, is. At times like these, it’s impossible to tell. Balthazar knows enough about Kit to know how carefully Kit thinks about the image he projects, particularly so soon after it’s been so thoroughly shattered.

“Are you doing okay, Kit?” Balthazar ventures.

Kit laughs, the smallest trace of bitterness bleeding into his voice. “Don’t ask me questions I want to lie to, Balthazar.”

Balthazar swallows past the sudden lump in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“Save it for someone who actually needs it,” Kit says, and smiles, not unkindly.

Balthazar lets the breath escape his lungs in a long exhale.

“Can I ask you something?” he says.

Kit says nothing, only tilts his head.

“What made you – “ Balthazar stops, tries again. “Why did you agree to stop fighting her?”

Something flickers across Kit’s face, something inscrutable.

“What did I say about questions I want to lie to?” he says.

Balthazar winces. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to – “

“No. I understand why you’d want to ask.” Kit purses his lips. “It’s just I’m not quite sure how to answer. Where to even start.”

“The truth?” Balthazar suggests, a weak attempt at being flippant.

Kit snorts a laugh. “You make it sound so easy.” He tilts his head in thought. “All right, what’s the easiest way to put it? The whole situation… It just reminded me of something. Someone, in my past. Someone who also had no choice.”

Balthazar waits.

“And I guess – well, back then, I didn’t do anything to help them. I could have, but I didn’t. I was selfish.” Kit sighs heavily. “And – you know, maybe I felt bad about it. Maybe this time I thought I could actually do something about it.”

_ I’m tired of having thoughts to hide _ , Balthazar remembers. For a brief, painful moment, he understands.

“Even if it was at a terrible cost?” Balthazar asks quietly.

Kit hums tunelessly. “No one around to miss my life but me, anymore.”

Balthazar’s gut twinges with pain, and guilt. It’s not just what Kit says, it’s how he says it. So matter-of-fact, so nonchalantly. And faeries cannot tell a lie.

Still.

“That’s not true,” he says.

“Isn’t it?” Kit says, wearily, with the weight of whole worlds in his voice.

Before Balthazar can answer, Freddie’s door swings open. They both startle at the sound, glancing over to Freddie and Ben as they file out of her room somberly. Freddie wipes at her eyes, and Ben rubs at her shoulder reassuringly. There’s another conversation Balthazar will never know.

Kit stands up, facing Freddie. He stands straight and tall, quietly confident. Freddie looks up at him, meeting his gaze, and the contrast in their stances, his tallness next to how she shrinks into herself, is striking.

“Kit, there’s something I need to tell you,” Freddie says. Her voice comes out hoarse.

He tilts his head, cautiously curious. He does not look afraid.

Freddie is silent as they look at each other, each too stubborn to be the first to look away. Then Ben nudges her gently – “Come on, Freddie, like we said” – and she breathes out shakily, and she speaks.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

From where Balthazar sits, he can see Kit blinking once, twice. It’s not much, but Balthazar knows it means he’s taken aback.

“I just,” she whispers, then starts again, barely louder, “didn’t know what to do.” She swallows hard. “I still don’t.”

Kit doesn’t answer, only stares.

“But – I’d never want to hurt you,” she says, voice small. “I know that now.”

Kit looks at her, long and hard, and silently. Balthazar can’t tell what thoughts are running through his head, and he doubts anyone else can, either. He’s never really thought of Kit as an imposing figure, friendly as he is behind the counter at Boyet’s, but here, hands in pockets and back straight, he’s almost intimidating. It’s no wonder Freddie was so scared when she confronted him.

“Kit,” she says, anxious, “please say something. Even if it’s to say you hate me, just –  _ say something _ .”

And then, abruptly, so fast Balthazar doesn’t even know what’s happening until after it’s happened, Kit takes his hands out of his pockets and pulls Freddie into an embrace.

She stiffens for the briefest of moments, shocked. But Kit does not let go, and after a moment, after two, Freddie hugs back, wraps her arms around Kit and clings.

Something swells in Balthazar’s lungs, his throat. It would not be easy, not in the slightest, to forgive Freddie for something like this. That Kit has, this person out of time, this faery who has lived so long he has little love and patience left to give, is nothing short of monumental.

But maybe Kit’s immortality is precisely the reason  _ why _ he can forgive like this. In just a few short years, Balthazar has seen the very best that humans are capable of, and the very worst. What has Kit seen through the centuries and millennia of living among them?

“I couldn’t say that, Freddie,” Kit says into her hair. “It’d be a lie.”

Freddie pulls away, then, her gaze unwavering.

“Do you mean that?” she says, wide-eyed. “You don’t hate me?”

Kit’s hands stay on Freddie’s shoulders, steady.

“I’m angry,” he says evenly. “And frustrated, and a little incredulous. But I don’t hate you.”

Freddie looks away, finally. “You have every right to be angry.”

Kit squeezes her shoulders. “I know I do.”

Freddie shoves her hands into her pockets, glances back at him almost shyly. “Can I tell you something else?”

“Yeah?”

“I… I don’t think I’m going to turn you in,” she says. Her voice does not shake. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But… I don’t know if I can do that.”

Kit stares back at her. “Your family – “

She sighs. “I know. But – I didn’t want to do it in the first place. I just didn’t think I had any choice.”

“And you think you have a choice now?”

“No. But…” She raises her chin a notch. “What kind of person would I be if I didn’t try?”

Wordlessly, Kit reaches out to hug her again, and this time it takes no time at all for Freddie to return it.

Ben shuffles over awkwardly toward Balthazar as Kit and Freddie pull away and begin to talk to each other in low voices. “Glad to see you’re doing all right, mate,” he says quietly.

“Thanks, man.” Balthazar glances up at Ben. “Hope I didn’t miss too much.”

“What, you mean me and Freds talking it up for, like, hours?” Ben shakes his head. “She was going to go off and sulk on her own, can you believe the woman? Like that would help the situation at all.”

“I’m glad you talked to her,” Balthazar says honestly. Strangely enough, he can’t think of anyone else who would be better suited for the task. Ben had been surprisingly good at playing the reconciler last year, once Hero was out of the hospital and the truth was out, and honestly, who better to deal with someone who needs to figure themselves out than someone who’s doing just the same?

Ben waves his hand dismissively. “It’s just what anyone would do.”

“Still.” Balthazar shrugs. “Looks like it did her some good.”

“Yeah.” Ben sighs. “I guess we’ve had our differences. A lot of them, actually, wow, that’s sort of ridiculous to think about. But she’s still one of my best friends.”

Balthazar nods. “Whatever you told her… I’m glad you said it.”

“Well.” Ben laughs awkwardly. “It was a bit more of a conversation, wasn’t it? That’s what you’re supposed to do in situations like these, yeah? We talked about some of her stuff, and then some of my stuff, and it was like, hey, I’m not the only person in this flat who has some shit stuff, you know? No, but really all I did was tell her I understood - like really, I really do - but that, like, not knowing what the hell you want to do or who you are aren’t good excuses for threatening your friends?”

“I guess she’s had some issues with that.”

“Well, it’s not like - “ Ben shoves his hands into his pocket. “She regrets it, I think. And like, yeah, I get that sometimes that’s not enough, but you know. She’s done her best under all this pressure and stress and family bullshit.”

“Yeah.” Balthazar pauses. “Freddie did some fucked up shit, but she was kinda… forced into it, I guess? Because she felt like she had to?”

And it’s not like the rest of them were saints, either. It’s not like the rest of them haven’t fucked shit up, either. It’s not like Balthazar hasn’t, just by virtue of keeping his silence.

The main point here, he’s starting to realize, is that humans aren’t really all good or all bad. Balthazar grew up being told that humans were fickle, always driven by their emotions, simple in their wishes and their petty desires. But if he was sent to the human world to see that for himself, then he failed. He failed, because all he sees is that the motivations of humans are myriad and stunningly complex, sometimes so much so that they can’t even be put into words. All he sees is the vast unpredictability of humans, because his friends never fail to surprise him in the best and worst of ways, and because after all these years he still has not tired of them, as almost everyone from his world said he would. He could witness humans say and do and  _ feel _ things for the rest of his life, probably, and never be bored.

And the thing is, elves feel things, too.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Ben says with a sage nod. “And - “ He hesitates, just for a moment. “Can I tell you something? You’re good at keeping secrets.”

Balthazar almost cracks a smile, at that. The irony is not lost on him. “What’s that?”

Ben leans in and says, in a conspiratorial voice, “I don’t think she was ever going to do it in the first place.”

“Yeah?” Balthazar says, mildly surprised.

“Yeah. I mean, she didn’t tell me, per se, but… you could tell. When it was happening, I mean.”

Balthazar thinks back. He thinks about how Freddie had reacted when Kit had finally acquiesced, the hesitance in her demeanor, the way she’d said his name before Balthazar interrupted her. He thinks about the look on her face, wide-eyed and confused and terrified out of her mind. He thinks about the conflict in her heart, the constant push and pull of duty and love, one he understands on a bone-deep level, one that’s written in his very blood. He thinks about Freddie, the kind of person with flawed reasoning and hurtful opinions she’s grown up surrounded by but ultimately also the kind of person who watches bad movies on bad days, and who writes the shifts of her favorite baristas into her calendar, and who loves, and hopes, and dreams. He thinks Freddie is nothing more and nothing less than human, and he thinks maybe you can’t be human unless you fight for the things you believe in against the people who would tear that away.

“You may be onto something, there,” he says.

“Balthazar Jones, are you insinuating that I’m  _ not _ always right?”

Balthazar breathes out a laugh. “I’d never.”

“He laughs!” Ben says, sounding strangely pleased. “It’s the small things.”

“Ha. Right.” Balthazar rubs at the back of his head. He knows Ben’s just being silly, but it feels like there’s something to that statement, something bigger. “That’s… the only way we’re going to get through this, isn’t it?”

Ben snorts. “I think our heads would explode if we tried to take it all at once.”

It dawns on Balthazar that that’s what he’s always imagined whenever he allowed himself to entertain the notion of telling the truth. An explosion, of sorts. And, in a way, that’s what actually happened. But he never envisioned the process of picking up the pieces after, putting it all back together and learning how to deal with it and just move on. Everything that’s happened in the past few hours - it must be a lot to process, if you knew nothing about it beforehand. Near impossible to conceptualize, even. Perhaps there is no choice but to take it as quietly as they have been.

“Can I ask you something, Ben?” Balthazar says.

“Sure, man. What is it?”

“You doing okay with all this?” Balthazar says. “Just... wanted to make sure someone asks.”

Ben shrugs. “I mean, I guess I’m sort of as horrifically confused as the next guy as to what the hell is going on, but, you know, that’s old hat, isn’t it?”

“Right. I suppose this isn’t exactly the best time to sort out all your life’s problems.”

“No,” Ben says with a wry smile. “Sort of helped put things into perspective, though.”

“Oh?” Balthazar raises his eyebrows. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I guess with everything that’s happened…” Ben rubs at his arm, almost bashfully. “It just hit me how important you guys are to me. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Balthazar can feel himself frowning at that. He’s not quite sure what to make of it.

“Anyway,” Ben says, nudging his shoulder, because of course he wouldn’t feel inclined to explain himself after saying something like that, “what about you, Mister ‘I dropped the biggest fucking truth bomb that was ever possible and then proceeded to pass out, causing mass hysteria and pandemonium’? Or should I say Prince? I dunno, I mean, Rosa did take the time to explain, but you’ll have to forgive me if I need time to, like, wrap my head around it.”

Balthazar winces. And there’s the elephant in the room. Ben’s delivery is tasteful as always. “Surely not  _ that _ much hysteria and pandemonium.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Ben looks at him out of the corner of his eye, expression surprisingly solemn. “Seriously, mate. You going to be okay?”

Funny how many times he’s been asked that question lately, yet how much he still doesn’t know how to answer it.

Because, months since Rosa punched him in the chest with a dilemma he couldn’t know the answer to and less than a week before he must, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do, or if he’s going to be okay. The realization feels cold in the pit of his stomach.

“We’ll see,” he says. It is, he figures, about as honest as he’s going to get about this kind of thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as last time, the next part will be up in a few days (or something of the like).
> 
> And here are [some](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145103630232/i-love-you-too-he-manages-because-he-should) [very](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145106035573) [lovely](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145108522962) [edits](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145111053316) by the great [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	18. Chapter 16 - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Recommended listening.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo3lxS-6joY)

Eventually, Ben heads into the kitchen to figure something out for dinner, and Kit and Freddie retire to the couch to continue their conversation under their breaths. Balthazar heads out the door, leaving them their privacy. 

Outside of the flat, the air is hot to the point of stifling in his long sleeved shirt. It seeps into him, pushes the tension out. He listens to the low rustle of branches around the flat, and thinks of everyone inside, mending cracks and rebuilding bridges he helped burn.

Balthazar takes deep, long breaths until he’s used to it. He likes being inside, but nature is in his blood; that is something he would have lost, too, if Freddie had complied with her parents’ wishes. Balthazar doubts they would ever have let him out of wherever they would be holding him. He doubts he would have ever seen the daylight again.

Voices carry up from the stairs, Rosa and Peter following soon after, and Balthazar finds himself frozen in place once more.

“—what is best,” he hears Rosa say. “You understand, don’t you?”

Silence.  Then, Peter, saying, “I think so.”

“Good. I did tell you, didn’t I, about the combat training I received in my younger years?”

Peter laughs. “Rosa, are you trying to give me the shovel talk?”

“Is it working?”

Another beat of silence, tense and terrible, and then they come into view. “There’s really no point to—Balthazar.”

Peter’s eyes catch on his.  _ I don’t know what to think _ , he’d said. In all the time Balthazar has known him, Peter has been nothing but assured in his opinions.

“Peter,” he replies. “I’m—” He looks to Rosa, helpless. Rosa, who had coordinated the flat and everyone around them when he’d passed out, who had pushed through her own pain to make sure chaos didn’t descend.

She steps closer to him, and then again; she stands in front of him and he braces for something, anything. Rosa has the right to shout at him, to rail about safety and risks and stupidity. She’d told him she wasn’t angry, but he’d felt it, in the moment before he’d passed out. He keeps his eyes fixed on her face because it means he isn’t looking at Peter, and he waits.  _ We’ll talk later _ . Is this later?

Rosa doesn’t smile, but her eyes are soft, sympathetic. “You should probably talk to him first,” she says, and Balthazar looks at Peter.

Peter isn’t looking back.

Balthazar turns his gaze to Rosa. “I’m sor—”

She shakes her head, a strand falling out of her neat bun. It’s like a break in her composure, almost—her hair in disarray, no time or will to keep it so tightly in check. He almost wants to tell her to tuck it back—if  _ Rosa _ is not okay, how can any of them ever be?

None of them are alright, not really.

He leaves the strand.

“Tell me,” Rosa murmurs. “How many times have you said that, today?”

Balthazar pulls his sleeves over his hands. “Not enough.”

Peter shifts out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t look, doesn’t let himself.

Rosa reaches up, rubs his arms through his shirt. The touch seems to ground him and break him apart all at once. He closes his eyes, breathes. He can’t afford to, not again.

“Hey,” Rosa whispers. “We’ll work this out.”

Balthazar thinks,  _ maybe we won’t have time _ , and is glad he doesn’t voice it. He’s caused enough pain; his fruitless indecision should not be allowed to worsen it.

“Okay,” he says. Two syllables are easier to lie with.

Rosa’s eyebrows quirk; he’s never been able to fool her. “We  _ will _ ,” she insists, but he knows it must taste like a lie to her, too.  There is something raw in her eyes, sad and a little desperate.

He says, “Should we talk now?”

Rosa looks toward Peter, standing awkwardly off to the side, and squeezes Balthazar’s arms softly. “Soon.” She doesn’t say,  _ we’ll have all the time in the world _ ; he doesn’t know if she’s thinking it.

Balthazar tries to swallow. “Can you—”

“I’m going inside; I might have Kit make me another coffee.”

He wants to beg her not to leave him, and recognises its inherent hypocrisy. “Don’t go without me,” he manages, unable to raise his voice above a whisper.

Her mouth tips up at the edge, but it is shaky and sadder than a frown could ever be. “I won’t leave until we talk,” she assures him, and then she pulls him close. Her arms snake around him and hold tight, and he can do nothing but reciprocate, resting his head on her shoulder. He nods into her skin, and she grips him tighter for half a moment before letting him go. With one last half-smile, she turns back inside, and he is left alone with Peter.

Said human clears his throat.

Balthazar does not want to turn. He does not want his heart to leap in his chest. He does not want to look at Peter, and think that all of this might be worth it if only he could stay with him, after.

He does.

“You okay, bro?” Peter asks, and  _ god _ , Balthazar just wants to laugh.

He feels hysterical, emotions bubbling under his skin, crawling like ants through his veins and arteries. Balthazar chews the words over for a moment, considering. Then, “No.” Is this the first time he’s told the truth?

Peter breathes—in and out, steady and deep. He nods, opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. Another breath.

“We  _ should _ talk,” Balthazar says, just to break the silence. Peter is still standing metres away, looking like he wants to move further.

“Should we?” Peter asks. He scowls. “You had a lot to say this afternoon. Besides, I think Rosa covered it.”

Balthazar’s ribs ache; his heart and lungs and everything inside him rebels, squeezing together and wrapping around his spine, taut and constricting. “What did she say?” he can’t help but ask.

Peter shrugs. He doesn’t look at Balthazar. “That you’re an elf, like you said. That the two of you are in the royal family.” His eyes meet Balthazar’s, then. “She said that she’s leaving. That you might be leaving, too.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Peter snorts. “ _ Oh _ , you might be leaving to the home I know you hate;  _ oh _ , you never thought to tell me a thing;  _ oh _ , you weren’t ever going to fucking tell me;  _ oh _ , you just let yourself suffer in silence, when any of us might have  _ helped _ ;  _ oh,  _ you were just going to fuck off without saying anything;  _ oh _ , you pushed me away because you didn’t think my poor human ears could handle the truth of you!” His voice drops away. Quieter, he says, “Didn’t you think I could handle the truth of you?”

It takes everything within Balthazar to hold himself upright. He can feel tears pressing behind his eyes, and he despises their presence more than he has ever despised anything in any realm. He tries to take a breath and shudders when it catches.

“No,” Peter says. “Of course not. When have I ever given you reason to?”

“Pete…”

“No, don’t just--- you can’t fix things just by—by saying my name like that and looking at me pitifully. You’ve been lying to us; for all the time we’ve known you, you’ve been lying to us. About—what? Everything? Is  _ anything _ I know about you real?”

“ _ Yes _ .” Balthazar blinks and swallows, breathes until it doesn’t hurt. “Just… not anything magical.”

“Just not your  _ species _ .”

“Everything else.” He knows it sounds pitiful. “I swear, everything else.” And yet—not everything; not that he’s in love with Peter or that he’d rather stay or even that the reason he doesn’t eat meat is that he  _ can’t _ . Then again, they may fall under “anything magical”, too.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Peter says, with vehemence, as his face changes. “God, this must have been awful for you, this whole year.”

Balthazar can’t deny it.

Peter rubs his eyes, weary and furious. “And—before? We looked like idiots, didn’t we? Stupid little humans, traipsing around and sticking their noses in places they didn’t belong.”

“No—no!” Balthazar protests. “No, never.”

“Really.”

Balthazar struggles to find words that could even begin to describe the sensations of his first few years with humans. “No, it was—you were fascinating.” That’s not right. “You were so different—I… you have to understand. The elves are everything you say they are—we are. Withdrawn, cold, strict.”

“You aren’t,” Peter says, quiet.

Balthazar forces a smile. “I’m good at music, Peter. Not much else.”

Peter’s eyes flash. He steps closer. “You  _ are _ ,” he says. “You’re good at plenty.”

He lets his smile linger for a moment before it drops. “Humans are different,” he says. “More…vibrant. You feel more… in quantity, I think, not necessarily in quality. You love  _ so much _ .”

“And you don’t?”

Balthazar shrugs. “There are limits,” he says. “Our hearts are weaker than yours, I think. Made to withstand time but not heartbreak.” He looks at the stairs. “Could we maybe sit down for this?” he asks; the bone-deep weariness has not yet seeped out.

Peter presses his lips together and nods. “Yeah, okay.”

When they sit down, they are closer than they have been at any point in the conversation. If Balthazar were to lean just slightly to the left, their shoulders would be touching. As it is, he can feel the warmth of Peter’s skin through their proximity.

“Rosa said you came to have experience in the human world?” Peter ventures, after a few minutes.

Balthazar nods. “If we weren’t retreating, I’d be sent to the other magical realms, too.”

“God,” Peter says, then sighs. “I’m sorry, this is just so…”

Balthazar remembers Peter’s disgust for all things magical, the drastic change his loss of belief had caused. He remembers nights when Peter would text him grandiose theories on the nature of magic, before; after, there had been  _ don’t wait up _ and stony silence. He remembers how it had ached to hear Peter disparage magic, how it had been worse, in a way, to see him not believe in it.

“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees. “It’s different.” He looks over at Peter, at the sharp line of his mouth. “What happened,” he asks, “after I passed out?” It’s a terrible change of subject, he knows, but it’s better than the awful spiral of guilt he’s seen Peter in before.

Peter looks up. “Um, Rosa caught you,” he says. “It was—it was awesome, actually. And then she carried you to your room and I yelled at Freddie and Ben yelled at me and Kit glowered for a while. It got pretty intense. I didn’t—after the incubus thing, I thought it was ridiculous that she could accuse another human being of that shit; I had no idea what was actually going on with you. I told Freddie I was going to call the police, and Ben told me I shouldn’t, and then your sister came out.”

Balthazar knows what Rosa looks like when she’s furious. She was trained as a warrior, as all elves are from their age of majority. She’d seen her share of war and devastation.

“She told us to pull ourselves together and stop infecting the flat with our tension, that it was only making it worse. Then she said that, yes, it was true, but that any hunter would be facing a losing battle if they tried to get to you—” Peter pauses, scowls, looks at Balthazar. “And hunters? I’ve seen Freddie’s books lying around, Balth. You were going to throw yourself to the mercy of people who dedicate their lives to tracking down and killing those like you. What new brand of idiocy is that?”

Balthazar looks at his feet. “I wasn’t thinking,” he says, but that’s a lie; hasn’t he lied to Peter enough? “No, I was—I couldn’t let Kit go alone. He’s lived millennia with no one.”

Even that is not the entire reason.

He swallows, continues. “It would have meant I didn’t have to go. With Rosa. It would have meant I didn’t have to live out eternity  _ there _ .”

Peter huffs. “You idiot,” he says, but it is fond. “You know you could have just stayed?”

“I have a duty.” The words are hollow, jagged. “I’ve been raised for it since birth.”

“But you don’t…” Peter’s jaw works. “God, Balth, don’t you ever think of yourself?”

Balthazar thinks,  _ I tried to protect myself from my feelings for you _ . He can’t say that, though, not now; not so soon. “Yes,” he replies. “Last week I bought hummus and didn’t share it with any of you.”

Peter laughs. It is not as rich as it usually is, or as unrestrained, but Balthazar treasures it, because it’s close, and because it’s Peter’s.  “You’re so selfish,” he teases, and it feels almost normal.

There are more serious matters at hand; as much as he wishes it weren’t true, he doesn’t have the time to simply have fun with Peter. “I am, though,” he says, and Peter’s quiet laughter ceases.

“What?”

Balthazar pulls at his cuffs.  “I came to Wellington,” he says. “I went back to Auckland.”

Peter shifts, pauses before he speaks. “When you were with your family, you didn’t answer my texts. Were you… were you considering staying?”

He shrugs. “It is my duty.”

“And yet,” Peter says, “you are  _ selfish _ .”

“I didn’t stay, though,” he insists. “I should have. It was selfish and stupid of me, but…” he pauses, considers. “You would have forgotten about me.”

Peter starts, turns to Balthazar. “Forget about you?” he asks, incredulous. “How the fuck would we forget about you?”

He shrugs. “I’ll never come back,” he says, and watches Peter’s shoulders tense, then fall. “One day, the boy in your friend group as a teenager will just be a blur at the edge of your memory. I don’t want to bring you pain, but I wanted to prolong your memory of me.  _ That’s  _ selfish.”

“No,” Peter says. He turns back, brushes his shoulder against Balthazar’s. “That wasn’t selfish of you. I wouldn’t want to forget you, either.” He doesn’t move his shoulder.

The words lump at Balthazar’s throat. “Oh,” he says, again.

Peter puts more weight onto Balthazar, warm and reassuring. He doesn’t say anything.

Balthazar remembers Chelsey’s words:  _ have you forgotten that we love you? _ Perhaps that is the issue, here; the only overt affection he’s been shown has been from humans and Rosa. Through and through, he is an elf.

“I’m sorry,” Balthazar says. “I know it does make it more painful.”

“Because you’re leaving,” Peter murmurs. “With Rosa.”

“It’s my duty. From birth, it’s been my duty.”

Peter shifts, but his arm still touches Balthazar’s. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s all I can give.” He breathes. “It would be so hard, to stay. I’d watch you all grow old and die, one by one. I’d live as the world rises and falls around me. I’d lose  _ everyone _ .”

“You’d lose us if you left, too,” Peter points out. “Just sooner.”

“I wouldn’t be the only one, then.” Balthazar pauses. “I wouldn’t be the only one here, either, but there would be more. I would have Rosa.”

“She’s your family,” Peter says, and Balthazar thinks, helpless,  _ you’re my family, too _ . “I know how important family is.”

“John,” Balthazar says, and Peter nods.

“I…” He stops, shakes his head. “We should get back inside.” He stands, but Balthazar catches his hand. He doesn’t want to go back inside yet; face the weight of their stares and their knowledge.

Peter stops—or rather, he freezes, suspended in place by the soft touch of Balthazar’s fingers.

“Wait,” he says. “What were you going to say?”

He sighs and doesn’t look at Balthazar. “I just… you have the right to choose whatever you want; I’m not denying that. But, no matter how much you want to stay with your sister, you don’t  _ want _ to go, and you hate it—don’t tell me you don’t.”

There is a part of Balthazar that wants to say,  _ you don’t know me, not really _ . He couldn’t face Peter if he said that, not again. “You’re right.”

Peter looks down at him. “And that doesn’t affect anything at all? Anything, Balth?”

“Of course it does—I just.” Balthazar swallows. “I can’t  _ let _ it; if I do, I won’t leave.”

His hand tightens on Balthazar’s. “Is that really a bad thing, though?”

_ Yes _ .  _ No.  _ “I don’t know.”

Peter smiles, a fond little gesture that seems to crawl into Balthazar’s heart and press out until it breaks. “God, I love you, Balthazar Jones.”

Balthazar’s heart stumbles and chafes. His hand tightens around Peter’s almost unconsciously. Have either of them ever said this aloud, in this way? He stands, pushing himself to his feet without letting go of Peter’s hand. He doesn’t ask if he means it; he knows Peter does, just as he’s known his own feelings for years.

“I’m—” Peter shakes his head, looks away. “I’m sorry, my timing is horrible.”

“Uh,” says Balthazar.

“I shouldn’t have said that, not now. Not when you’re leaving.” He looks back and Balthazar and tries to extricate his hand. Balthazar lets him.

Balthazar looks down at his feet. “You knew, didn’t you?” he asks, not accusing. “Back… before everything. In Auckland.”

“I… yeah.” Peter sighs. “You liked me; I could tell, by the end of it. But then all the shit that happened…” He looks up, meets Balthazar’s eyes. He’s still smiling, small and sorrowful. “That's what that song was about, wasn't it? An Ode. That was about you liking me.”

Balthazar had forgotten about that, almost; that moment of guarded vulnerability. In all the whirling mess that had followed, something so simple as a failed reveal of his feelings faded into insignificance.

“Yeah,” he answers. He had thought that Peter would have forgotten-- what was one joke between friends, in the midst of all that happened? But Peter has always been an expert at pushing away that which he could not deal with, and Balthazar supposes he’s learnt a little of that, in the last few months.

“You liked Pedro. You liked who I was before it all.”

Is that what Peter thinks? That the reason Balthazar has turned him down and pushed him away was simply that he didn’t feel the same anymore?

“I did,” he agrees, heart in his throat; he reaches for Peter’s hands with both of his and finds them. “I did like Pedro. But I like Peter, too.” Peter’s fingers curl around his own. With more confidence, he says, “I love you, Peter Donaldson.”

Peter breathes; they breathe together, for a moment, in silence. Balthazar’s heart pounds in his ears.

“God,” Peter says. His breath shakes, and they are standing close enough that Balthazar can almost feel it. “God, our timing is so fucked up.”

Balthazar wants to lean forward, to rest his head on Peter’s shoulder, and he does. He doesn’t remember ever being this tired, right down to the core of his being. He says, “Maybe, if I wasn’t…”

Peter takes a deep breath and Balthazar feels it in every part of him. “If you weren’t leaving.”

“Yeah.” Balthazar pauses, then, “If I wasn’t leaving—if there wasn’t all of this complicating things—do you think we’d be dating by now?”

“I mean…” Peter snorts. “We’re both pretty dense when it comes to things like feelings, Balth. We’d probably find something else to angst over and then dramatically fight a few more times before finally getting over ourselves and talking.”

“We would have worked it out in the end, though,” Balthazar says, not sure why that’s so important, but feeling that it  _ is _ .

Peter releases one of Balthazar’s hands, only to rest it on his back, thumb stroking comfortingly. Balthazar should be the one comforting Peter, really; he’s the one who lied and pushed and caused all this trouble. He’s been able to carry the weight of his own problems for years; Peter shouldn’t have to bear it with him.

It’s nice, though, to stand here in Peter’s arms. To let himself get lost, if only momentarily, in the sensation of Peter without the fear of the future.

“Yeah,” Peter answers. “Yeah, I think we would have.”

Balthazar doesn’t want to lose this.

“What if,” he begins, words half muffled by Peter’s shirt. He pulls away, and Peter’s hand rests on his back. The words stick to the roof of his mouth; he stumbles over their edges. These are not words he has let himself release before. “I don’t want to go, Peter. What if I just—didn’t?”

Uttering the words out loud makes them both real and ridiculous. What a preposterous possibility—to just stay. To abandon all his duties and just live for himself.

Has he ever even let himself entertain the possibility?

“Balth,” Peter says, and stops.

“What if I stayed?” Balthazar asks. He can’t stop the idea, now that it’s been voiced. “I want to stay.” He thinks,  _ I can’t _ , but that fades in the face of his desire –  _ need  _ – to stay. Here, with his friends and the people who have become his family, somehow; with  _ Peter _ , Peter who loves him for who he is but unwittingly despised him for what, who had caused him so much joy and pain in turn. He wants to stay.

He wants to stay.

He wants to stay and watch Ben figure out who he is, and Freddie step out of the shadow of her parents, and Chelsey and Paige figure out the complexities of their day-to-day lives, and Kit learn what it means to have a friend that doesn’t leave. He wants to see Peter smile again.

But he also wants to watch Rosa thrive in her own environment, to learn and grow and make flower crowns at festivals. He wants to  _ see her _ , not just once every few months or years, but every day—whenever he fancies. He wants to unearth her past and share experiences. He wants to love her with all the love he has left.

It should be simple math—one versus all, easily answered. The answer should be clear. But is the worth of one being so easily quantifiable?

“Would you regret it?” Peter asks. He looks like he aches to say something more, but he just shakes his head.

Balthazar thinks, for a moment. He thinks of all that he wants and all that he cannot have, and answers, “Yes.”

Peter’s breath leaves him in a rush. “Okay.”

“But,” Balthazar says, “I would regret going, too.”

“Okay,” Peter says again. His thumb strokes Balthazar’s back, the small movement subtle but noticeable. “If you did… we both have a lot of shit to work out.”

“Yeah, maybe.” It’s strange, that everything around them is so stationary, that the only movement Balthazar can sense is their breathing and their hearts beating and Peter’s thumb on his back. “We probably have our own problems to work out, regardless.” He doesn’t think there are really people he could talk to about this in the elven realms, though. He is to be king, not some strange human hybrid pining over those he can never have with issues no elf has ever dared to raise. Cool and emotionless. There would be people for Peter, though—there’d be Ben and Freddie and Jaquie and Costa, and all his other friends that Balthazar has never met. There’d be professionals to talk him through anything begun by Hero’s party and perpetuated through Balthazar’s silence. It would be so difficult to stay; he doesn’t want to leave.

There is still Rosa to consider.

Balthazar forces himself to push away from Peter, just a little further. “I can’t make a decision,” he says. “Not without Rosa.”

Peter nods, and lets his hands drop to his sides. Balthazar feels cold where they had been touching. “Do you want to go talk to her now?”

The sun is slipping below the horizon, a day before his birthday lost. Time, as always, strains against him and tugs him along in its wake. “I should.”

He can’t bring himself to leave—here, in the quickly cooling air, just him and Peter and the dryadless trees, nothing is quite real. It is easier to say he may not leave and tell Peter that, to confess his feelings with the hope of a positive outcome, to hold Peter’s hand as if they won’t need to let go. In this intangible reality, Balthazar could promise everything. Will it mean anything, when he is jolted back into the real world by the presence of everyone else?

It would be nice, he thinks, to suspend this moment in time and live inside it forever.

“Come on, then,” Peter says, but he makes no move to leave, either.

Finally, Balthazar slips his hand into Peter’s. Perhaps they can carry a little of the intangibility with them—half a moment caught between their fingers, on the edges of their eyes. Perhaps it will be noticed. Perhaps this will mean something.

They walk inside.

 

 

_ The day Hero is discharged from the hospital, Balthazar isn’t there to see it happen. _

_ To be fair, it would be strange if he was. He saw her as often as he could back when she was still recovering, but she also needed her space. After days of unwanted attention, scrutinizing eyes and damning whispers behind her back, he understands why she wouldn’t want to be surrounded by people all the time. It’s something he understands all too well. _

_ As it is, the day she gets out, clouds hanging low in the sky, he gets the text that Ursula sends him – _

**_From: Ursula_ ** **_  
_ ** She’s okay.

_ And it feels almost like an anticlimax after the weeks of worry and tension in everyone’s shoulders and words, but at the same time it feels strangely right. Hero’s journey to recovery needed to be calm and quiet and everything that the events leading up to her admittance were not. It needed to be on her own terms. Like this. _

_ It is a relief, as well, that Hero is finally coming back. Not that Balthazar hopes that it’ll all go back to normal; he knows it won’t. But school without Hero had been weird and awkward and tense, everyone skirting around Hero’s absence at the lunch table, Beatrice not bothering to hide her glares at Claudio and Pedro, who in turn didn’t bother to hide how wretched they felt. Claudio didn’t visit Hero, and neither did Pedro. Balthazar figures that’s probably for the best, for everyone involved. _

_ When Hero does come back to school, the tension doesn’t dissipate immediately, or arguably at all. It takes a few days for the first ice to thaw, silences and sighs and awkward questions with awkward answers. It does, just enough for everyone to settle back into joking banter and light conversation, for Hero to laugh and Ben to pull off his usual silly antics and Beatrice to smile just a little, and for Pedro not to be so sullen Balthazar can almost feel it in the air when he sits next to him. _

_ But there are layers to the ice. A certain hesitance, difficult to broach and overcome, weighing every conversation the group shares. Glances, subtle and meaningful. Jokes that aren’t made. Smiles that are stilted, just barely. _

_ Just as well. Elves do not heal quickly. He should not expect humans to be able to do the same, not when they love and feel so much more in so many ways. _

_ He can feel, also, how hesitant Pedro is around Balthazar himself, at least when Hero first gets out. There’s a certain care taken, a certain fragility. A moment when Pedro might normally reach out and touch his arm or shoulder, and doesn’t. A conversation over text that’s too brief, too courteous. Balthazar doesn’t know what to make of it. Pedro is this way with everyone right now, of course, but it feels like there’s something  _ **_different_ ** _ here. Something he can’t quite put his finger on, but something that’s present, something he can feel keenly, fluttering under his ribcage. _

_ Whatever it is, they do not speak of it. It would almost be a breach of the carefully unspoken boundaries they’ve established with each other, if they did. It is a relief, in some ways, that they do not. _

_ At the least, Pedro hasn’t stopped giving him rides. Sometimes they’ll spend hours after school wandering down roads they’ve never driven down before in his pick up truck, silence not quite comfortable but not quite the opposite either, some strange liminal space they’re still trying to feel their way out of. It’s the rides that help, probably, with the ice that slowly thaws between them. They do not speak of the last time Balthazar got into Pedro’s car. They do not speak of the weeks of distance, and of silence, and of everything in between. They speak of other things. Safe things. Somehow, that helps. _

_ “School’s becoming more and more unbearable by the day, don’t you think?” Pedro says in the car the Monday after Hero comes back to school, running a hand through his hair. _

_ “Why’s that?” Balthazar asks. _

_ “I don’t know.” Pedro shrugs. “You tell me.” _

_ Balthazar pauses for a second. He could always answer with something serious. The real answer, even. He doesn’t know if they’re ready for that, though. He doesn’t know if they ever will be. _

_ “I don’t read minds,” Balthazar says instead, an answer that is silly enough - safe enough - to surprise a cough of laughter out of Pedro. _

_ Half a week after Hero is released from the hospital, Ursula sends out a group text about a picnic. It doesn’t take much for Balthazar to agree to come, despite the difficulties his friends have been having. At this point, the apologies have been made, and people are speaking to one another again. At this point, maybe it’s about time they pick up the pieces and learn slowly how to move on. _

_ Balthazar is in the car with Pedro when they get the invitation, reading out the text to Pedro so he doesn’t use his phone while driving. The window is down, and the breeze blows Pedro’s hair about wildly. _

_ “What do you think?” Pedro asks, voice almost lost on the wind, though Balthazar knows he’ll always listen closely enough to hear what Pedro has to say. _

_ “Yeah, it sounds like a good idea,” Balthazar answers. “Sounds like fun.” _

_ Pedro is silent, contemplative gaze trained on the road in front of them and hands squeezing around the steering wheel. Balthazar doesn’t know, exactly, where they’re going. It doesn’t seem like he has a destination in mind. They don’t usually get lost, though, and if they do Balthazar doesn’t imagine it’ll take them long to find their way again. _

_ “Surely you’re not thinking of not going,” Balthazar says. “I don’t think Ursula will let you.” _

_ Pedro bites at his bottom lip. “No, I’ll go. I just – “ _

_ He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Balthazar knows, like an instinct, what he means. _

_ Pedro sighs, and glances at Balthazar. “You want to head back to my place?” _

_ “Smash bros?” Balthazar asks. _

_ Pedro grins. “And you say you’re not a mind reader.” _

_ When they get back to Pedro’s house, they play video games for a while. It’s almost enough, but not quite, to mask the spaces and silences they don’t speak of. Pedro’s hesitance, however brief, to go to the picnic that weekend. Their stubborn and mutual dance around the things of the past they know not to touch. John’s absence, cold and stinging and heavy. _

_ After a few rounds, Pedro throws his controller down, tosses himself on the couch and splays his limbs over it, looking at the ceiling. Balthazar sits on the floor and leans his back against the couch, the back of his neck just barely brushing Pedro’s thigh. They don’t look at each other, can’t. Perhaps it’s by design. Perhaps it’s something else. _

_ “Can I tell you something, Balth?” _

**_Anything_ ** _ , Balthazar does not say. _

_ “Mhm?” _

_ “I think I’m bi.” _

_ It’s almost unceremonious, the confession. It’s a little out of the blue, too, a little unprovoked. But some part of Balthazar feels, for some reason, like he’s always known it was going to be like this. _

_ Slowly, deliberately, he reaches up behind him. Waits. _

_ It’s not long before a hand nudges into his, fingers sliding through his own. _

_ “I’m proud of you,” Balthazar says quietly. “Proud of you for having the courage to say it out loud.” _

_ Pedro’s fingers squeeze around his palm. _

_ It’s a small moment. It’s quiet. After that, though, something loosens in the air between them, something inexplicable. There’s a new understanding, almost, of trust and silent support, except not quite new simply because they’ve already had it for as long as they’ve been friends. Maybe it’s a rediscovered understanding. Maybe it’s an amended one. Either way, Balthazar is more glad than he can say that they’ve found it. _

_ The days until the picnic are spent idly. The calm feeling all around, with classes coming to an end fairly soon but not too rapidly and a gapingly unknown future ahead, is almost too casual. But it’s enough, in this moment, to make Balthazar feel at peace when he’s with the others, to allow himself – just for a moment – to think, maybe things will be okay some day soon. _

_ Pedro drives him home most days, or at least as close to home as Balthazar will let him go. The weather outside is hot enough now that his windows are perpetually down, and the wind that rushes in drowns out Balthazar’s thoughts, and his dreams. _

_ “Shit, I can’t wait for the year to be over, though,” Pedro says one afternoon, half to himself. _

_ Balthazar can wait. The end of the year, for him, does not mean university, or finding a job, or starting a new life. The end of the year for him means going back to his homeland and leaving behind the humans forever. _

_ “Yeah?” he says out loud. _

_ “Yeah.” Pedro’s mouth twitches upward. “New beginnings and all that, right?” _

_ Perhaps, in a way, it is. All Balthazar can think of is ending. _

_ “Could be a song,” he says. _

_ “Yeah.” Pedro’s smile breaks into a grin, warm and sunny; Balthazar’s heart stutters, just a little, in his chest. “Yeah, it really could.” _

_ On the day of the picnic, they meet at the Dukes’ house and pile into cars. They drive down the road, and the sky is cloudy and bright. Balthazar looks over the rolling hills, music blasting in the car and his friends laughing raucously, and feels an odd warmth in his chest. Something like hope, he thinks, which in itself is odd. What does he have to hope for, really? _

_ Someone nudges his shoulder. He glances over at Ursula, who pushes her glasses up her nose and looks at him pointedly. _

_ “Are you brooding?” she says. “Because this vehicle is a strict no-brooding zone.” _

_ “I was not brooding,” he answers. “I was definitely staring dramatically into the distance, pretending I’m in a movie.” _

_ “Honestly, I think I’d watch that movie. Two and a half hours of Stanley Balthazar Jones staring dramatically out a car window? Sign me up.” _

_ “Coming soon to theaters near you,” he says with a laugh. _

_ She smiles gently. “How are things with you, Balth? I feel like I haven’t had much of a chance to check up on you.” _

_ “I’m…” _

_ Good? Not good? Somewhere in between? To be honest, Balthazar hasn’t had much of a chance to figure out how he’s been feeling lately, either. _

_ “Calm,” he settles on. “Especially now that everything’s sort of quieted down.” _

_ Ursula nods. “Yeah, I get that.” She sighs and leans back in her seat. “I can’t believe this last month actually happened.” _

_ Images flash across his mind, unbidden – Hero’s sixteenth, violent screams and shuddering apart; cold distance between everyone and Pedro and Claudio, taking sides and feeling the unspoken rage and frustration digging under his skin; tension, so much of it, silent and simmering and never quite exploding outward but sometimes coming frighteningly close; guilty silence, heavy like a burden. _

_ “I can’t quite believe it either,” he says. _

_ Perhaps the most unbelievable part of it all is how quickly they’re coming back from it. Not, of course, that the recovery is happening instantaneously; far from it. But it is happening, at any rate, and forgiveness comes easier to Balthazar than he anticipated. The feelings of elves are supposed to be immutable, long-lasting and resistant to change. They say an elf can hold a grudge for a thousand years once you’ve crossed him. But Balthazar doesn’t think he could hold a grudge if he tried. All anyone in this world is doing, it seems to him, is trying their best. That ought to mean  _ **_something_ ** _. _

_ “I am grateful to you for organizing the picnic,” he adds with an encouraging smile. “It’s… nice, to feel like things can go – well, I guess ‘back to normal’ isn’t right. But better.” _

_ Ursula smiles back. “You know, I wasn’t so sure about having it so soon after Hero got out, but… I think it’s right. Almost feels like we can move past this. Together, you know?” _

_ “Yeah, definitely,” Balthazar says. He knows what that’s like, too, after a week of rebuilding and healing, of finding something new and fragile amidst the old framework of his friendships. _

_ “I’m just glad she’s okay.” Ursula glances up at Hero in the passenger seat, hair blowing about her head in the wind that comes from the open car window, and smiles, an almost imperceptible curve upward on her lips. She turns back to Balthazar, reaches out and squeezes his hand briefly. “I’m glad we’re all fine now.” _

_ He squeezes back. “Yeah,” he says honestly. “We’re getting there.” _

_ They pull into the parking lot of their destination, then, and get swept up in the preparations. Ursula squeezes his shoulder one last time before spinning off toward Hero, who grins at her when she approaches. _

_ The air is casual, unhurried. They talk meanderingly, cracking stupid jokes and laughing into the wind, as they bring their baskets and blankets over the hills. He feels light like this with his friends, like the breeze could pick him up and blow him away and he wouldn’t even care a little, not one bit. _

_ When they begin setting up the picnic, Balthazar finds himself next to Hero, spreading blankets and talking to Beatrice idly. _

_ “Hey,” he says to her, nudging her shoulder as Ursula had done earlier. He likes checking up on his friends, knowing that they’re doing all right, and now is certainly no exception. “How’s it going?” _

_ “Hi yourself,” Hero says with a bright smile. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” _

_ He peers up at the sky doubtfully. “I mean, if you say so…” _

_ Hero laughs. “I’m doing well, thank you. And you?” _

_ The blankets are spread out. They sit down. “I’m okay,” he says. “Glad we can be here together, and all that.” _

_ “Well, when you put it like that, it almost sounds kind of cheesy,” Hero says teasingly. _

_ He cracks a smile in answer. “Maybe a bit, yeah.” _

_ “So are you excited that term is ending soon?” Hero asks, raising an eyebrow. _

_ “Sure?” Balthazar shrugs. “I honestly haven’t thought about it that much. And I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do yet, but…” _

_ “You still have time to decide, right?” Hero says. _

_ Less time, perhaps, than he really needs. Less time than any of them truly know. _

_ “Still,” he says. “It’s a little scary.” _

_ “Yeah, I can imagine.” She hums to herself thoughtfully. “You know, Ben’s been talking about going down to Wellington for uni. Have you thought about doing something like that? Could be good to have a change of pace.” _

_ “No, I haven’t, really.” It’s more accurate to say that he hasn’t allowed himself to think about it, but it’s not quite a lie, either. “I might.” Which is almost certainly not the truth. _

_ “Well, it’s up to you, really.” Hero threads her fingers in the grass, pulls at the blades absentmindedly. “I am going to miss you all, though. Things will be so different next year.” _

**_Different_ ** _ is a little of an understatement, in Balthazar’s opinion. The thing is, none of the rest of them know how different it really is going to be. He’d laugh at the thought if he believed it to be even remotely funny. _

_ “Yeah, but, like, not that you actually need any of us around, yeah?” Balthazar says lightly, bumping her shoulder again. “Seriously, though. You’re going to be fine on your own. Great, even.” _

_ “I appreciate that. I really do.” She glances down at her hands, almost shyly. “I suppose that is something I’ve been trying to learn. How to be fine on my own, I guess you could say. But… Just because I don’t need other people around doesn’t mean I don’t want them to be. You know?” _

_ The statement gives Balthazar some pause. For some reason, it’s never really occurred to him to think of it like that. He has grown up with  _ **_family_ ** _ and  _ **_duty_ ** _ and  _ **_my people_ ** _ being drilled into his head. He has never been given the option to believe that the things he wants are just as important as the things he needs to do. _

_ Would he be able to, if he were human? If everything was not at stake for making the right or wrong decision? For the one choice that’s ever really mattered, if not to himself than certainly to the people around him, even the ones that don’t even know it’s one to be made? _

_ Would he be able to think that now? _

_ He opens his mouth to answer, unsure of what to say but feeling like he should try anyway, before a hush falls over the group. Hero looks up, and lets out a small gasp. _

_ “Is that – “ _

_ Balthazar squints at the horizon, but before it can even register who the tall dark figure coming down the hill is, Pedro is already up and running. Within seconds, they’ve embraced, long and hard and clinging. _

_ “John,” someone says. Balthazar blinks once, twice. And then he’s glad, the warm rush of it almost overwhelming, because today feels like a day of beginnings, and this is a beginning no one expected but it is, unquestionably, a good one. _

_ Pedro and John make their way back, talking in low voices, and an unspoken weight none of them even knew existed has been lifted. It feels, at least for a little while, that things are right again with the world. _

_ He enjoys the day more than he expected he would, which is saying something. The food is good, the company is better. He talks and laughs with his friends, and for just a day, he can almost let himself think of nothing else but the happiness in this moment, the fragile cracks in his friend group slowly mending, knitting themselves together. It’s more time than he thought he’d ever have. _

_ Pedro comes out to the whole group on this day. Balthazar knows he’s already told a few of them, but he also knows how cathartic it is to tell everyone at once and to have it all out in the air. His own sexuality was not something he kept secret for very long in the human world, only waiting until he was comfortable enough with the humans around him to tell them – in the elven realms, this at least was not a piece of himself he was encouraged to bury – but he understands the sheer relief of saying it out loud, the briefest moment of terrifying giddiness tingling in your chest the second after the words leave your mouth. Pedro’s declaration – “Hey guys, not ready to say good  _ **_bi_ ** _ yet, eh? Pun totally intended? You know, ‘cause I’m bi?” – is met with an overwhelming outpouring of support, hands clapping him on the shoulder and “We’re so proud of you!” and “Hell yeah!” Balthazar meets Pedro’s eyes for a moment, right when he says it, and smiles. _

_ After the fuss dies down, Pedro gets up and sits next to Balthazar. _

_ “You doing okay?” Balthazar asks. _

_ “Yeah.” Pedro wipes his hands on his pants, some mixture of disbelief and barely restrained excitement clear on his face. “That was – that was good.” _

_ “Yeah, it was.” Balthazar beams at him. “I know I’ve said this before, but… Proud of you, mate.” _

_ “It’s a good day,” Pedro says with a nod, glancing over at John, who is calmly eating grapes. _

_ “You two good?” Balthazar hazards, figuring at this point it’s as safe a question as any. _

_ Pedro exhales. “Yeah, I think so. We’re – gonna talk more later. But it’s already enough, for now. I’m just – happy. That he’s back.” _

_ Of course, one good moment after a lifetime of not-so-great ones won’t be enough to build that relationship to where it needs to be. They will try, though. Balthazar looks at these humans, these brothers, who have helped and hurt each other in so many ways, and knows, better than he knows most things, that they will try. _

_ “I’m happy too,” he says out loud. _

_ “Yeah. Thanks, bro.” Pedro smiles briefly. That, too, is enough. _

_ They sit in silence for a moment, then another. Then – _

_ “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?” Pedro says, quietly. _

_ It feels, a little, like a concession. Like an admission that there was a time that might have been thrown into doubt, or that there was ever any doubt at all. _

_ In the end, Balthazar doesn’t even have to think about it to hold out his hand and say, “Of course.” _

_ Pedro’s eyes flicker down toward his palm, surprised. A second later, he reaches out and claps their hands together, linking their fingers. It’s a moment that doesn’t need any more words than that, and he’s glad for it. _

_ Looking round the circle of his friends under the silver clouds, he feels that, maybe, the question might apply to all of them. Ursula shows Hero something on her camera, leaning in together over the small screen and their fingers brushing. Beatrice rests her head in Ben’s lap, loudly and unashamedly happy, Ben’s fingers tangling in her hair and soft smile never faltering. Claudio and John fight briefly over the last cookie. Pedro doesn’t let go of his hand for a long while, even when he reaches to get food. For once, after weeks of fighting and bitterness and silent nothingness, his friends are happy, and they deserve to be. For once, he does not doubt that they will be okay, all of them. For once, he does not worry. _

**_This could be a new beginning,_ ** _ Balthazar thinks,  _ **_for you and me._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are [some](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145113639948) [absolutely](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145116266302) [ridiculously](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145124099502/for-once-after-weeks-of-fighting-and-bitterness) [amazing](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145118981372) [edits](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/post/145121638154) by the one and only [niuniujiaojiao](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com/).


	19. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, our apologies for the delay of this chapter. We've both been incredibly busy, but this chapter was also incredibly important and we wanted to make sure we got it right.
> 
> The epilogue will be posted tomorrow. Thank you for sticking with us, and we hope you enjoy the last chapter of this fic!

It almost feels like things should be different when they get inside. In the movies, the lighting would be all glowing and blurry, some sort of visual reflection of the deeply metaphorical transformation Balthazar has presumably just gone through. But this is real life, so the interior of the flat looks the same as it always has - fairy lights on and everyone’s stuff spilling out of every corner of it; a bit like home, really - if emptier of people than it’s been in recent hours. Rosa, hands curled around a coffee mug and sitting on the sofa, meets Balthazar’s eyes steadily with her own. He can hear voices from the kitchen. That must be where the rest of them are.

“I should leave you two to it,” Peter says, squeezing Balthazar’s hand gently.

“Are you sure?” Balthazar turns to him. What he really means is, _You don’t have to go_ , or even, _I don’t want you to_. Even now, despite everything that’s happened, it’s easier to bury the things he means inside himself. It’s harder to say them out loud. He is unaccustomed to telling the truth, even if he’s promised to try from now on.

“Yeah, bro, I’m sure,” Peter says tiredly. “Don’t want to get in the way. You have a lot to talk about.”

 _I don’t belong here_ , Balthazar can’t help but hear. He doesn’t know if that’s right, if he understands Peter or if he doesn’t get him at all, but his heart clenches anyway.

“Will you be okay?” Balthazar asks, suddenly and inexplicably desperate for Peter say the words. Because if Peter can admit something like that out loud, something so small yet so important, maybe, finally, Balthazar can believe it for good, too.

“Yeah.” Peter smiles at him, weary but real. “Promise.” Something in Balthazar’s gut twinges; he can’t tell if it’s a good or bad feeling or both or neither. Can’t tell if it matters what it is.

Peter looks down at their joined hands, swings them back and forth gently. Then, suddenly, as if on impulse, he brings Balthazar’s knuckles to his lips, his mouth brushing against his skin so softly it’s barely there, like a ghost. Before Balthazar can answer, can feel or think anything but bright and hot static in his head, Peter disentangles his fingers. He smiles one last time, crooked and gentle, and leaves for the kitchen. Balthazar can’t pretend anymore that the tips of his fingers don’t tingle with the ache of absence.

Balthazar inhales deeply, trying in vain to get his pulse down. Even now, Peter always finds a way to catch him entirely off guard, and even now he still doesn’t quite know how to deal with it.

Pulling his thoughts away from feelings he doesn’t know if he can make sense of, he walks to Rosa. She is almost unnaturally still, eyes unblinking. If Balthazar knew her any less than he did, he would think her impassive, totally immune to the mundane activities of the flat. But he does know her, he knows her better than he’s known anyone his whole life, and so he sees the straightness of her back and the smoothness of her expression for what it is – soul-deep, bone-deep exhaustion.

Not like he can blame her, really.

“How are things in here?” he says, going for the safest avenue of conversation possible, delaying the inevitable.

Slowly, Rosa stands up, unfurls her long limbs and straightens her back even more. “I think they’re doing something about dinner,” she says, eyes flickering toward the kitchen. “Freddie and Kit seem on decent terms, now, or as decent as they can be about this in the present moment. Getting there, anyway, I guess. Paige and Chelsey insisted they stay and help. Ben is – well, Ben.” She sighs deeply. “They said something about talking after dinner. I said that damn well better be after you get the space you deserve.”

Does he deserve the space? It feels like he’s had too much of it, today.

“Talking would be good,” he says carefully. He rubs at his eyes. “I should help fix the mess I’ve made.”

“Balthazar,” Rosa starts, then seems to think better of it. “I figure we can talk in your room,” she says instead. “Away from all of the chaos.”

Not that the main area is all that chaotic at the present moment, but he can’t complain about the opportunity to escape the negativity he can still feel lingering in the walls. “Okay,” he says, and follows her.

She sits on the edge of his bed, crossing her legs at the ankle. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes his seat next to her, wondering if he ought to look at her or try to avoid her gaze as much as possible.

It turns out he doesn’t need to make the choice. Rosa reaches out and takes his hands between her own, startling him enough to look up at her, and she doesn’t let go, and she doesn’t look away.

“Balthazar,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” he says, as honestly as he can. “But glad that it’s all... that I don’t have any secrets anymore. It was getting to be a bit much.”

Something flashes in her eyes, inscrutable. “Can I ask you something?” she says.

Balthazar is not used to Rosa asking permission, so confident she is with the things she gives and takes. He swallows down his surprise, unnecessary as it is. “Yeah?” he says.

“Did you expect it to turn out so well?” she asks, voice so steady he knows it veils an emotion she doesn’t want him to see. “Did you know Freddie would react the way she did? Did you – well, I guess what I want to know is… Did you know you were never in any real danger?”

He can’t afford to lie, not anymore. So he does the only thing he can – he tells the truth.

“No,” he says.

She inhales sharply, as if burned. Her fingers squeeze around his tightly, almost painfully. He does not ask her to let go.

“You were banking on the danger,” she says. It’s not a question.

“I thought…” His voice cracks, much to his embarrassment. He clears his throat and tries again. “I thought it would be easier.”

“Balthazar,” Rosa breathes, brow furrowing. She’s agitated, he can tell. Her fingertips tap against his skin, quick and fluttering. “You have to know it wouldn’t have been. Not for anyone.”

He thinks, briefly but with the consideration Rosa’s tone demands, of how everyone reacted. The infinite concern in Paige and Chelsey’s eyes, full of affection he doesn’t know he deserves. Carefully constructed impassivity on Kit’s face, painstaking as it is false. Deep and massive confusion in Ben and Freddie, conflict they barely know how to resolve within themselves, let alone for their friend – and that’s what Balthazar is, isn’t he, no matter how much he pretended not to believe it before?

Rosa now, in this moment, the sadness and pain in her eyes so easily masked but so difficult to hide from him, because he knows what they look like on her face all too well; it’s the same thing he sees every time he looks at his own reflection. Rosa brushing her hair behind her ears impassively, decades of experience with smothering her feelings until there’s nothing left on the mirror-smooth surface, but even for elves, it’s near impossible to feel nothing at all.

And then there’s the wildness in Peter’s eyes, fiercely and endlessly passionate, because he would fight for him; Balthazar knows that now if he didn’t before. Peter would fight for his friends, and he would fight for Balthazar even if Balthazar didn’t ask him to, if in fact he did everything in his power to make it not so. Peter would fight for Balthazar even when he doesn’t understand what it is he’s fighting for.

Balthazar was not prepared for how much his friends would care. But as soon as he has the thought, he knows how preposterous it sounds. How could he not know how unwilling they would be to let him go, just as he is with them?

“I know that now,” he says, simply.

Rosa is silent in response. She’s searching his gaze for something, he can tell, though what that is he cannot guess. She looks away finally, pulling her hands away and folding them in her lap. He does not ask if she’s found what she was looking for. It’s impossible to tell.

“I think,” Rosa says, almost to herself, “that this has been… difficult, for me, because I’ve struggled to understand for so long. I’m not sure if I do, even now.”

Balthazar does not ask what it is that she wants to find.

“I want to tell you a story,” Rosa says abruptly. It might seem like a blatant and sudden change of subject to anyone else, but Balthazar knows better.

“Okay,” he says.

She’s always told the best stories.

“It’s one about me.” Her lips twist up in a wry smile. “Not that you haven’t heard enough of those. But I’ve withheld from telling this one because I didn’t think it was appropriate. I always thought you were too young. I see, now, that it has always been appropriate, for you. Perhaps things might have turned out differently, even, if I had told you sooner.”

“Is this – “ he begins, suspecting. There are legends about Rosa, pieces and shades he’s glimpsed at but never the full story because she’s never told it to him, about the biggest mistake she ever made. He has used such rumors to hurt her before. He has seen her regret, deep and cutting, brushing against it briefly but never really exposing it for what it is.

She breathes in, deeply. Breathes out.

“Yes,” she says. “The one and only time I told a human who I really was.”

Balthazar stays silent.

“I was – young,” she says, slowly, taking care not to stutter over the syllables. “Younger than I am now, anyway. It was one of my first missions to a human community. And it was here in Wellington. I befriended a young man. Boyet, his name was. Back then, I had little experience with the way humans could be. I trusted him and his friends. I trusted the town. And he – he made me believe that trust was worth it.”

She breathes in again. To anyone else, it might not mean much. To Balthazar, it means this is the hardest story she’s ever had to tell.

“So the long and short of it,” she says, words rushing out of her like a river, “is that in my foolishness, in my naivety, I told the city who I was, and what I was there for. I thought it would make my task here easier. I thought, awfully, that I could be the one to bridge the gap between our two worlds. In my vast, foolish ambition, I thought my name would go down in history.”

She laughs bitterly.

“They turned on me,” she says. “For being a liar. For manipulating them. I don’t fully know, anymore, what their reasons were. I hardly understood it myself at the time. All I knew was, in the aftermath, my friend, the very first friend I’d ever made in the whole world, was hurt. Grievously, horribly injured in his efforts to defend me, for he was the only one who dared to. It was all I could think about. It was all I knew.”

Balthazar finds himself speechless. Not because he’s stunned to hear these words, or because he finds himself at a loss. He says nothing simply because there is nothing to say.

“I left Wellington, after that,” Rosa says. “I did my best to make sure our people would steer clear of the place when possible – not much of an issue, considering the distance between the city and what eventually became our lands. But it was the least I could do after the damage I caused, to protect them. Us. I wanted to make sure I would never hurt anyone like that again.”

“Boyet,” Balthazar echoes. The name of the first human Rosa ever truly knew.

She smiles humorlessly. “I could never think of becoming that close to a human again,” Rosa says. “Let alone to live among them. I could never do that much damage again.”

 _Good history_. The words rise almost unbidden to the forefront of his mind, uttered offhandedly by Kit on a day that feels so long ago it might have been a dream.

“But – but surely…” Balthazar purses his lips. “Kit told me once that Fred Boyet told him his family and you had good history.”

Her gaze snaps over to him. “What?”

“Is it outside the realm of possibility…” Balthazar hesitates, unsure if what he’s about to imply is within his place to. But after everything that’s happened this past day, perhaps they’re all past boundaries, past considering what’s safe to talk about or not. “That Boyet – the one you knew, I mean – founded that coffee shop, that safe place for magical beings… because…”

Rosa sighs.

“Yes,” she says. “It has occurred to me. From the very first day you showed me that place. I could feel the history of it in its very floorboards. My history, as it happens.”

“Humans are capable of horrible things,” he says, falteringly. The thoughts in his head are hard to put into words. But it has never seemed more important that he articulate this than now. “Surely - surely they’re capable of wonderful things, too.”

“Yes.” Rosa uncrosses her legs, unfolds her hands. She leans back on her arms. “Perhaps that is something I have come to understand as well, this past year.”

The idea of Rosa learning, of growing and changing, is very nearly alien to him. He’s always known her as a pillar of elven society, the picture perfect model of everything an elf should be. Immutable. A rock. The most stable constant of his life.

But, as it turns out, Rosa is a person, too. He should never have forgotten that.

“Rosa… Why’d you tell me this story?”

She hums. The sound is as tuneless as it is melodic, entrancing and wistful.

“For a vast part of my life,” she says, “I held this as my greatest shame. This here was a reason better than any rhetoric I could use to convince myself that the elven and human worlds were meant to be separate. Clearly my error, my pride, had blinded me from my duty. And my duty is about all I have left, these days.”

She looks to Balthazar, then, and her eyes are blazing.

“But Balthazar, you and I,” she says, “we are different people. My mistakes are not yours. I should have known better than to think it was ever otherwise.”

The words strike him, like lightning. It’s an admission of failure, in a sense. Rosa believing that she has failed Balthazar, in any way, is a foreign idea, as foreign to him as it feels wrong.

“But I’ve made mistakes, too,” he says, pulse thrumming in his chest. “Big ones. Cataclysmic ones.”

“And yet,” she says, a century of pain and guilt and fire in her eyes, “it is not my place to fix them for you. It never has been.”

Balthazar swallows hard, past the lump in his throat. “What are you trying to say, Rosa?”

She reaches out, rubbing her hand on his arm, a rhythmic motion that soothes him. The fire has not died in her eyes, but it is tempered by a certain tenderness, a kind yet firm air that only Rosa is capable of.

“Your path in life is your own to walk,” she says. “I cannot travel it for you. Our parents cannot, either. Our people cannot. In your heart of hearts, you already know where you wish to go.”

“It’s not that easy,” he says, almost automatically, not sure if he believes himself anymore, not sure if he should. “It’s not ideal.”

“It was never going to be easy,” Rosa says gently. “No choice is ideal. And yes, if you don’t come back, our family will lose a great deal. There is simply no way around it.”

Balthazar swallows painfully. “Then why - “

“Let me tell you what I’ve learned these last few months,” Rosa says, “after all the reflection, and the introspection. My choice is, and always has been, to come back to our home. But home means something different to the both of us. That, too, has always been true. I realized it, that night we sang that song. I felt like I was seeing you, _truly_ seeing you for once. And what I saw was not what I expected.”

What Rosa is offering him here, Balthazar realizes, the epiphany dawning on him like a sunrise, is a gift. It is a gift borne out of selflessness, out of all the love Rosa has for him. It is no small thing for her to give. Sudden heat prickles behind his eyes, insistent and blurry.

“All you have to go off of, going forward, is your own experiences, and your own mind,” Rosa presses on. “The only thing to be done is to accept that that is enough.”

“If I stay,” Balthazar says, the admission seeping through the inside of his chest like a poison, “I’ll lose you. I’ll lose our people, too.”

“And if you come with me,” Rosa says, “you will lose yourself.”

Her statement echoes the thought he had so long ago, that first day he knew he had to make a choice or die trying. It sends a chill down his spine, tingling and cold, to realize that Rosa knows him almost as well as he knows himself.

For he understands, now better than he did even when he first thought it, what is at stake. His friends, his kingdom, his people, everyone that he could possibly ever care about, are important to him, but they have always been secondary to this - this struggle to believe that he, himself, is important enough to save.

His whole life, he has been taught to put everything – his family, his duties, his people; _everything_ – before himself. Maybe that’s what he’s been fighting all along.

“Listen to me, Balthazar,” Rosa says, insistent. “Choosing one over the other doesn’t mean the other choice isn’t important to you. Far from it. It just means you’re living your life your way, on your own terms. No matter what you choose.”

“I’ll miss you,” he says, words fighting past his swelling throat. “For the rest of forever, I will miss you as if I am missing a piece of myself.”

Abruptly, Rosa reaches over and pulls him into a hug. It’s a shock to feel her arms tighten around his back, her face burying into his shoulder. He’s still not used to this. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be, or worse, if he’ll even get the chance to try.

Slowly, tentatively, he wraps his arms around her, too. Feeling her heartbeat so close to his, her breath against his ear, makes it almost easy to lose himself in the warmth, to melt into a love he’s never quite touched before but has always known was there, someplace invisible yet always, always constant.

“I will miss you too,” she whispers into his ear. “But people are not made up of other people, and you are whole without me.”

Her voice does not shake, her hands do not tremble, yet he knows, even as she speaks a truth that touches him in a place inside him deeper than he thought existed, that there are tears in her eyes she will never want him to see.

When they break apart, her hands rest on his shoulders. She looks into his eyes, long and lingering and silent.

“I’m proud of you, Balthazar,” she says, her words heavy with honesty. “I am proud to call you my brother.”

Something swells in his lungs, something that lumps in his throat and threatens to overwhelm him. It almost feels like this moment, the moment things shift into place and the path of his life moves to a course he can finally see clearly, should be huge. It almost feels like everyone should be here, that there should be loud fanfares and screams into the sky and crowds that stretch on farther than the eye can see. But there isn’t. There is simply a boy and his sister, and the words they’ve taken years to learn how to say out loud.

“Thank you,” he says. He does not choke on the words.

 

 

There is an unspoken agreement, when they emerge from Balthazar’s room, that no one will speak of the unknowable future until after dinner is over. Dinner, in a sense, represents a silent truce, if only they’d been fighting a war. No war has been fought, but they’re all tired, and Balthazar knows better than anyone how much they need a reprieve.

So dinner passes by peacefully, or as peacefully as it can after a day like this. The conversation rarely turns to magic – an old habit, hard to shed? – and there are jokes, and sometimes even laughter. It helps to have Paige and Chelsey there, sitting on either side of him, Paige’s presence a soothing balm.

After the meal is finished, Paige takes Balthazar’s hand in her own. “Walk us out?” she murmurs to him.

He meets her gaze, mildly surprised. “Aren’t you – “

Paige smiles, and shakes her head lightly. “Besides,” she says when they stand, “we’ve left Daisy alone for too long.”

“Oh no!” Chelsey looks legitimately distressed as they walk outside. “You don’t think we’ve missed her scheduled feeding time, have we?”

Paige glances down at her watch. “No, but we must hasten,” she declares. “Darling?”

Chelsey takes her arm, worry still creasing her brow. “We _have_ to feed our cat on time,” she insists.

“I…” Balthazar rubs the back of his head, suddenly uncertain. “Thank you, really. Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to.”

“Oh, Balthazar.” Without hesitation, Paige wraps him in a hug, warm and enveloping. It’s almost an instinct, now, to bring his arms round her back too, to squeeze and to feel. “We wanted to. And we’re _happy_ we came. We got to make sure you’re okay.”

“You will be okay, right?” Chelsey cuts in, concerned.

“Yeah,” he says. For once, it does not taste like a lie. “Safe travels home, yeah?”

“Thank you,” Paige says brightly. “And… one last thing?”

He shoves his hands into his pockets. “What’s that?”

They exchange a glance, brief but warm. When they turn back to him, their smiles are soft and full of understanding.

Chelsey reaches out and places her hand on his shoulder. “We don’t know when the next time we’ll see you will be,” she says, eyes wide and honest. “But we’re glad you’re our friend, Balthazar. We’re very, very glad we met you.”

He swallows, throat suddenly dry. “I’m glad too,” he says. “More than I can say.”

They hug him one last time, long and tight. They turn for the stairs, their hands intertwined.

“Wait,” he says, almost on an impulse.

They pause on the top step, heads tilted back toward him in almost perfect unison.

“I love you guys,” he says. It comes out more easily than expected; his chest does not constrict at the words.

Chelsey’s face bursts into a full grin, jubilant. Paige’s smile is softer, but no less genuine.

“We love you too, of course,” Paige says.

And then they’re gone.

When Balthazar goes back into the flat, everyone is circled around the table, dishes cleared away and low voices murmuring at each other. His approach quiets the conversation. Heart in his throat – he has no real reason to be nervous with everything out in the open, and yet he finds that he is – he takes his seat next to Rosa.

“Great, Balth’s here, now,” Freddie says, clapping her hands together. She’s starting to resemble her former self again, confident in herself and taking charge. “We can get this started.”

Maybe at a different point in time, or perhaps a different world, someone would have spoken up, would have questioned why a conversation like this was necessary. Balthazar knows, though, as well as anyone at this table does, that after a year of struggling in solitude and in silence, the best thing they can do is to speak.

“So first of all, the rules are out,” Freddie says. “I feel like that should be fairly obvious, but it’s worth saying out loud.”

“All hail King Freddie,” Peter says, making a bowing motion with his hands.

“Anyway,” Freddie continues, ignoring him, “I was already thinking we needed to have a meeting about what we were going to do next year, if we were going to keep the flat or go our own separate ways and all.” She smiles weakly. “So this is just like that. Except with more people. Which is fine. And also earlier than anticipated. Which. Is also fine. And needed.”

“Are they going to cut you off?” Kit cuts in quietly. “Your parents?”

Freddie takes in a deep, shaky breath. “I… I don’t know,” she says. She seems almost unused to talking about her family out loud. Balthazar knows the feeling. “But while it’s not a guarantee, it’s definitely a possibility that we need to discuss. The issue of us losing the flat before the end of the year, I mean. And we’ll need to come up with plans if we are going to lose the flat. Or even if we don’t want to live here anymore, which is, of course, also very possible.”

After the questions of life and love he’s had to find the answers to this past year, the fate of his family and his people resting in his own trembling hands, the thought of losing his flat seems like a very human concern. An almost mundane one. And yet to hear her lay it out like that sends a chill shuddering down his spine. In a way, the fear of losing your home, however that may be, isn’t mundane at all.

“Shit,” Peter says emphatically.

Freddie winces. “Again,” she says. “This has yet to be discussed. I need to talk to my parents about it, but… I’m afraid.”

Kit reaches out and rubs her shoulder comfortingly. “It’s okay to be,” he says quietly. “None of us blame you.”

She shoots him a grateful look. They’re back in a good place, it seems, or they will be soon. There was once a day when a friendship like this seemed impossible, the ruthless hunter and the aloof ages-old faery. Today, it seems only natural that they could be like this, supporting each other and understanding. After all, Freddie is not so ruthless, and Kit is not so aloof.

Freddie clears her throat. “So yeah. I need to talk to my parents, for better or for worse. I think… I think I might even turn in all my weapons.”

That’s a huge thing for her to admit. Unbidden pride swells in Balthazar’s heart. He’s glad his friends have the strength to make the choices that once seemed so difficult. He is not the only one, it seems, to realize that the hardest choice sometimes is also the most important one.

“But,” she says, staring at her hands, “I’ve no idea how they’re going to react. I just know I have to do this. For you guys, but… but especially for myself.”

Freddie looks up at them, then, round the whole table. Three magical beings, two others that have been caught unwittingly in the crossfire. All the people she might have hurt in permanent ways, and didn’t. All of her friends.

“Are you going home, then?” Kit says. “To talk to them?”

Freddie nods, exhaling. “I don’t know what’s in my future. Honestly, I can’t even think a week ahead right now without my head spinning. But yeah, I think I’m going back home. It’s a conversation that needs to happen face to face.” Her lips quirk up in a tired smile. “After that, what happens is anyone’s guess, really.”

There’s silence for a moment, as everyone processes what she just said. Her speech is heavy, full of uncertainty for the future. And yet there’s a certain strength in the undercurrent of her words, the knowledge that there are things that only she can do and that she must do them, not for the sake of her family or anyone else but for herself. Balthazar admires that. It’s something he’s struggled to find almost his whole life.

“Proud of you, mate,” Ben says, knocking their shoulders together.

Freddie exhales. “Thanks.”

“I’m going to go back home too,” Ben says, hesitantly. “Not like that, though. I mean permanently.”

Everyone turns to look at him with varying levels of surprise. Balthazar finds that he isn’t, really.

“Permanently?” Peter echoes. “Does that mean you’re quitting school?”

“I guess? I mean, I think so. I mean, I know.” Ben shakes his head. “I guess all of this was my idea in the first place,” he says. “But I’m not scared to admit, anymore, that I can be wrong about some things. And that’s okay. It’s still worth fixing.”

“You, admitting that you’re wrong?” Freddie bursts out. “Perish the thought.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugs, nonchalant. “Turns out, I miss Auckland. A lot, actually. And, you know, maybe it’s not a bad idea to go back to a place I want to go back to?”

“Nerd,” Peter says affectionately.

“And what about you, Peter?” Ben returns, wiggling his eyebrows. “Any plans?”

Peter runs a hand through his hair. “I… still have to talk about it with some people,” he says, eyes glancing over at Balthazar. “But for the flat thing, I’ll ask around. Seems worth it, anyway, if we’re not… if the flat is separating.”

“Why does this feel like an awful break up talk?” Ben says mournfully.

The comment surprises a laugh out of Freddie. “It does, a bit, doesn’t it?”

“Listen, we’re not splitting up,” Peter says. “Flat league’s too tight for that. Just because we’re not living in the same place doesn’t mean - I refuse to let you guys go so easily.”

Rosa nudges Balthazar’s arm with her elbow. He looks over at her, startled, and she smiles back encouragingly. _This is your chance_ , he can almost hear her say.

“Yeah, about that,” Balthazar says, slowly. “I have something to tell you guys.”

That’s enough to stop everyone in their tracks. He is aware, painfully so, that he’s already said so much today, revealed more of his secrets than anyone in the world knew he was capable of hiding. But this is important, this might be the most important thing he’s ever said, and as Freddie must go back to her parents and Ben must go back to Auckland, so he must say this out loud.

“I want to stay,” Balthazar says.

Nothing changes. The clock keeps on ticking. His pulse still beats under his skin, fast and steady. The world spins on.

But saying it out loud makes it feel real in a way that thinking it to himself, over and over like a mantra, could never. Saying it out loud makes it tangible. Within his grasp. The thought is almost dizzying.

“Balth – “ Peter says.

“I don’t know how much you guys know about what I was dealing with,” Balthazar says. “My parents have wanted me this whole year to come home before I became of age. But I have a choice. I always have. And I choose to stay.”

“Balth,” Peter says. “Your family.” And he knows that Peter doesn’t mean his parents, or any of the dignitaries he’s never met. Peter means Rosa, sitting right here, right next to Balthazar.

“You’re my family too,” Balthazar says, unable to tear his gaze away from Peter’s. He couldn’t say that out loud, either, just an hour ago. Now, that feels real, too.

Peter stares back at him, wordless.

“Hell, yeah, we are,” Ben says, pumping his fist into the air. The spell is broken; Balthazar looks away.

And it’s as easy as that. Nothing broke. Universes didn’t shift. His friends accepted his admission in stride. In many ways, it’s such a human way of dealing with things. In many ways, Balthazar is glad for it.

“So,” Freddie says, uncertain, “I guess that’s these next few weeks sorted. Are we going to…?”

“We can’t be parting ways so soon,” Ben gasps dramatically. “There’s too much to do!”

“Like what?” Freddie says, brow furrowing. “I mean, I dunno about you guys, but I really ought to talk to my parents soon…”

“Well,” Peter says. “We should at least stay for Balthazar’s birthday.”

“Shit, that’s in a week!” Freddie says, clapping her hand over her mouth.

“And there’s also finals,” Ben points out.

“That,” Peter says, “is an excellent point.”

Balthazar can feel his cheeks warming. “You guys don’t have to – “

“Of course we do,” Peter says, voice soft. For the first time the whole conversation, he smiles. “How else am I going to give you your present?”

Balthazar is too surprised to feel embarrassed. He opens his mouth, intending to tell Peter not to worry, and ends up saying, “What an idiot.”

Peter bursts out laughing, huge guffaws, enough to send the rest of the table into laughter, too. It doesn’t take long for Balthazar to join them.

It’s not until after the laughter dies that Balthazar looks at Rosa. She’s smiling at him, but the joy that’s in everyone else’s eyes is replaced by a sorrowful wistfulness. _Oh_. He’d forgotten, for a moment, that his deadline was hers, too. Balthazar finds the smile slipping off his face slowly.

He’s never going to see Rosa again.

 _I am whole without her_ , he thinks; _I will live on_.

He thinks, _I wish I didn’t have to_.

“You have to go,” he says, the quiet words twisting up through his throat like thorns.

Rosa nods, and the remainders of laughter fade into memory.

Freddie frowns. “You can at least stay for Stan—for Balthazar’s—birthday, can’t you?”

“No.” The word is softly uttered and deliberately dull at the edges, but it is a weapon all the same. “The gate between the realms closes at dusk on his birthday, and then we begin preparations to retreat completely on the summer solstice.” She pauses, turning her eyes back to Balthazar. “My flight is booked for tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll fly up with you,” Balthazar offers. “To say goodbye.”

It feels odd to be resolving this in front of the flat, like they’re putting all of themselves on display. _You’re family_ , he’d said, and he’d meant it, but he’s not quite used to having anyone but Rosa, yet.

Rosa’s eyes soften. “Okay,” she says, in a voice hardly above a whisper. “I’ll organise a flight back.”

Balthazar nods and looks away, because he thinks that if he looks at her a moment longer he might crumble again. His eyes meet Peter’s. Peter blinks, then smiles, soft and reassuring, a little uncertain.

“Well,” Ben says. “I think it’s about time we all turn in, don’t you?” He stretches and yawns, long and loud, and Freddie glares good-naturedly.

“Now we’ve all caught them, Benedick.” She yawns to punctuate her sentence, and glares again.

He grins. “Guess we should go to bed, then? Ah – Rosa, you…”

“I have a place to stay for the night,” she nods, then stands. “Balthazar, I’ll see you in the morning.” For half a moment, she hesitates, then seems to change her mind. “Goodnight, all,” she nods, and sweeps out the door with a grace only a centuries-old elf could possess.

Freddie stands. “Kit, I’ll walk you out.” She, Kit, and Ben rise from the table, and Ben waves dramatically before heading to his room, as Kit and Freddie walk out the door.

Kit pauses just before he leaves the flat. “Night, Balth,” he says, smile crooked. “See you around, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees, and is glad to know he means it.

“We should be getting to bed, too,” Peter says, stretching.

Balthazar nods. He remembers the way they had stood outside, Peter’s arms around him, the dangerous and wonderful words hanging taut between them, the warmth of another hand in his. Had they left that there, for the wind and the wild to sweep away?

Peter stands, and extends his hand toward Balthazar. He smiles, just at the corner of his mouth. “May I walk you to your room?”

“It’s ten steps,” Balthazar protests, but he’s smiling too, despite the events of the night and Rosa’s ever-increasing distance from his life. He takes Peter’s hand and revels in the way their fingers twist together like the action is familiar. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love me for it,” Peter says, and his voice is laughing and sincere all at once.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I do.” He lets Peter pull him to his feet, and together they walk the ten short steps to his room. He doesn’t let go when they reach the door.

Peter sighs, then smiles again, a little sad as he leans against the doorframe. “I’m sorry about Rosa,” he says. “But I’m glad you’re staying.”

“I am, too,” Balthazar replies, and means it. After a moment of hesitation, he begins, “When I get back, after saying goodbye…”

Peter’s lips purse, face shadowing. “We need to figure that out,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“This is a lot.”

“It is.”

Peter frowns, smile almost entirely gone. “There is a lot of shit we need to sort through.”

Balthazar nods. “On both our parts, yeah.” His hand is still in Peter’s; neither loosen.

“I still need to figure out my opinion on the whole…” He waves vaguely at the air with his other hand, “… magic thing.”

Balthazar wishes that he could erase all of the hurt that he and Peter had caused each other over that. If it were gone in a moment, they wouldn’t have to worry about it, wouldn’t have to still be dealing with it in the first few hours of what might become a relationship.

“I know,” he says. “And I need to settle into the whole idea of staying.”

“It’s going to be difficult.”

“But…” Peter meets Balthazar’s gaze, eyes bright and hopeful, and Balthazar continues, “we can try, can’t we?”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees, and his lips tug up at the corners. “Yeah, we can try, Balth.” Peter’s hand tightens around his. “You go with your sister, and when,” _when_ , not _if_ , “you come back, we’ll figure it out.”

“We will.”

Peter’s smile is full-blown by this point, and Balthazar’s cheeks are aching from the effort of supporting his own. He can’t remember the last time he smiled this much.

Balthazar thinks, suddenly, of the early morning he’ll have, and tears his gaze from Peter’s; if he continues staring, he might never stop. “We should go to bed,” he says, cheeks warm.

Peter pushes off the doorframe, still not releasing Balthazar’s hand. “I was planning on kissing you tomorrow, before you left,” he says, after a moment. “Just to let the whole thing sink in first. But I don’t want our first proper kiss to be a goodbye.” He leaves the sentence hanging between them.

“Are you asking if you can kiss me?” Balthazar asks, and Peter hums.

“Can I?”

Balthazar nods, and Peter leans in just slightly, enough to make up their height difference. Balthazar makes up the rest of the way, pressing his lips against Peter’s.

The world stops in its tracks and narrows to Peter’s lips on his, their hands together, Peter’s hair loose of its gel and tickling his forehead. His mind is silent, blessedly calm, at peace. He thinks, perhaps, that Freddie has finished seeing Kit out, is witnessing this quiet moment between them, but he can’t quite bring himself to care. _Everything is changing_ , he thinks, and smiles into Peter’s lips.

When they pull away, he rests his forehead against Peter’s and blinks once before opening his eyes. Peter stares back, warm.

“I love you,” Peter says, his hand on Balthazar’s cheek, fingers brushing the shell of his ear, and pecks his mouth softly. “Goodnight, Balthazar.”

“Goodnight,” he murmurs, and Peter lets go of his hand, then his other runs down Balthazar’s jaw to his neck, and he steps away.

 _Everything is changing_ , he thinks again, and the endless possibilities thrill him.

 

 

The next morning, Balthazar wakes a little after sunrise, a tangle of emotions rising in his chest as he struggles out of bed. Hope and loss and a sharp sort of fear clash and loop through his ribcage like vines, crawling up into his lungs and heart.

He’s going to say goodbye to Rosa.

This, at least, gets him out of bed; staying will no more delay the inevitable than it has through the rest of the year, but it will reduce the time he has with her. He grabs his phone and earphones for the way back, and walks out of his room. He should go now, probably; she’ll be up, and it’ll mean a few more precious moments in her presence before she leaves. Staying in bed will mean staying awake wondering if he made the right choice, if he should forget about the return ticket Rosa’s probably booked and join her.

As Balthazar is about to leave the flat, he’s stopped short by Peter’s door opening. His heart jumps and stumbles in the same motion.

“Balth,” Peter mutters sleepily, rubbing his eyes. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

Balthazar finds himself smiling, despite himself. He walks to Peter instead of the door, stands a good half metre away, uncertain. “I’m coming back,” he says, and Peter takes his hand.

“I know,” he replies, the words soft and slurred by sleep. “Just—wanted to make sure this last day wasn’t some weird dream.”

“It wasn’t,” Balthazar assures him, the whirlwind of events and actions and words and decisions still not quite settled in his mind and heart—perhaps it will become real when he sees Rosa, or when he says goodbye, or years from now, when all that he has ever feared will come to pass. Perhaps it won’t ever.

Peter smiles, then. “I guess I can kiss you good morning-slash-goodbye, if that’s the case?”

Balthazar kisses Peter softly, then leans forward further and wraps his arms around him, burying his face in his neck. Peter returns the hug warmly.

“I love you,” he whispers. “A stupid amount. I know this is really hard for you, but I’m here. Even if we end up talking and decide it’s a terrible idea, I’m here.”

Balthazar breathes deeply. He thinks it might be hitting him now, all that he is about to lose and gain. “I love you, too,” he replies. “And I’m here, as well.”

“Good.” Peter kisses his temple quickly, then pulls away. “Now you have to go see your sister, and I have to go back to sleep, because it’s way too early for this. We’ll talk when you get back.”

“Okay.” Balthazar steps away, looks at Peter for another moment.

He’s going to lose his sister and his people, but he can keep _this_. He can keep love and music and friends and _Peter_ and nights when they all meld together. He can keep himself.

Balthazar walks out the door, and his head and heart are still all jumbled but at least he is certain. In this moment, he is certain of his choice.

The walk to Rosa’s flat is shorter than he’d like it to be, though every moment seems to stretch into an eternity. His heart pounds with each step, a steady stream of recycled thoughts and weary feelings, already beaten around and stretched and drained to the limit. He thinks, a little viciously and rather guiltily, that at least when everything is over he will be able to sleep.

Rosa answers the door when he arrives, already dressed, hair bound tightly back and clothes immaculate, as if she’d never left the elven realms and their influence.

“Balthazar,” she greets softly.

He breathes, steadying his shaky lungs. “Rosa.”

They stand for a moment, suspended, and Balthazar’s heart aches with the weight of the moment. He hadn’t ever thought he’d have to memorise his sister.

“I’m ready to go,” she says. “Kel’s getting the rest of his stuff, now.”

Balthazar nods, and Rosa picks up a small suitcase from next to the door. Kel appears behind her a moment later, and he locks the door behind them as if he is just heading out for a day in town. It feels anticlimactic, almost, but he still has hours before goodbye.

He has hours until he has to say goodbye.

“I have a car parked out on the street,” Kel says. “If you don’t have any qualms against driving.”

“Not at all,” Balthazar says, and Kel nods, perfunctory, then looks back at his door.

“I’ve lived here for a good century,” he murmurs, then turns away. His face is carefully blank, just as Rosa’s, just as Balthazar’s should be. Then again, that is the reason he’s staying, isn’t it?  Kel sighs. “Do you think,” he asks, and he might be talking to Rosa or he might be talking to no one at all, “we will be expected to forget all of this?”

Rosa doesn’t look at him. “I won’t,” she says, and Balthazar thinks, _she is losing a brother today_.

They walk to the car in silence, and drive in silence, and Balthazar remembers the happy conversations he and Rosa used to have and wishes that they would not smother under the heavy weight of his choice. His last memory of Rosa will be of this, of the tense silence that hangs between them on the drive to the airport for the very last time.

As time stretches on and they arrive and check in and sit near their gate, the silence settles and becomes something closer to comfortable. Balthazar leans into Rosa’s side and closes his eyes and revels in the quiet display of affection she is allowing. This, he thinks, should be his last memory: the warmth of her arm against his, soft and steady; the memory of her smile, beautiful in its rarity; the sharp comfort of her words; the moments where silence was enough.

Rosa sighs and leans her head on top of his, and he presses his lips together until the ache in his throat dulls.

At last, a voice blares over the intercom, announcing their flight, and Rosa shifts, rising to her feet and picking up her bag. Kel follows, and Balthazar soon after, and Balthazar is glad, suddenly, that he and Rosa are seated next to each other on the plane.

They board, and find their seats, and Balthazar leans into his sister again and takes her hand with the excuse of his first flight. Rosa knows when he’s lying, has always known, but she doesn’t protest, only curls her fingers around his with the strength of the years of touches they will never have. He holds tighter when they take off and doesn’t ease his grip when the plane evens out.

At one point, he opens his mouth to speak, but the words stick in his throat. _I’ll miss you_ , he wants to whisper, but he has said that already and will say it again, and he doesn’t want to cheapen the words. It is not quite real, not yet, and saying them is hollow until it is. He shifts his head on her shoulder and closes his eyes and tries not to think until they land.

They make their way through the airport in Auckland and Kel squints at the sky, clearing his throat.

“There’s an entrance not far from here,” he says. “We can get there by lunch, I think.”

Rosa shakes her head. “You go on ahead,” she says. “Tell my parents I’ll be there by sunset.”

Kel hesitates, then nods. “Of course, Ambassador Rosa.” He looks at Balthazar. “I wish you endless happiness in your life with the humans,” he says, then leaves.

Rosa breathes in, then out. “Well then,” she says to Balthazar. “Coffee?”

Balthazar nods, and they fall silent again. They catch a bus into town, to a shop they’ve been to before, one that Rosa doesn’t mind as much as the others. He considers asking, for a moment, why she drinks coffee when she so rarely finds a brew she likes, but this is not the time for such questions. His throat burns with all that he never asked or said, for all that he’ll never have the opportunity to.

When they leave the coffee shop, it’s just to make their way to a park near it, mostly empty but for the occasional jogger and young family. Balthazar looks at the genuine smiles they’re wearing and takes a sip of his coffee so he doesn’t frown. Rosa brushes her arm against his, and when he looks at her she’s staring at the family, too.

“Do you ever wish,” she says, quiet. “That we had been like that? Born human?”

Balthazar swallows. “Sometimes,” he confesses, no louder than his sister. “But I’ve never been a very good elf.”

Rosa looks at Balthazar, frowning. “You’re one of the best elves I’ve ever known,” she says. “You’ll remember that, won’t you? That you’re an elf?”

“Of course,” he answers, throat tight. “And you’ll remember this.”

Rosa smiles then, just a little, and it’s more heartbreaking than any frown she has ever worn. “Always.”

Balthazar nods, takes another sip of coffee. They fall quiet again and find an unoccupied bench, and Rosa presses her arm against his and doesn’t move away. This is the most he’s touched her in years, he thinks. They sit like that, coffees cooling between their palms, watching humans go through their lives in varying degrees of happiness, and the sun tracks its course through the sky until it hovers over the horizon, and they do not speak.

At last, Rosa sighs. “I promised I’d be there by sunset,” she says. “We should go.”

Balthazar’s heart might be melting into his stomach. “Oh,” he says. He doesn’t want this afternoon to ever end, not if it means he’ll never see her again. She stands and holds out a hand to pull him to his feet.

“Come on,” she prompts, falsely cheerful. “A promise is a promise, and I have duties to fulfil.”

 _Do you have to?_ , a part of him wants to ask, but that’s not fair to her. Balthazar has always felt more connected to humans than his own people, but Rosa has lived and loved and hated within the elves. To try and guilt her away from that would be as bad as if she were to try convince him to join her.

Instead, he follows her, and his throat feels clogged with all that he dares not say. _I’ll miss you_ and _I don’t want you to leave me_ and _do you remember making flower crowns at the summer festivals_ and _I wish we’d had more years together_ and _you are the best sister I’d ever wish for_ and _I love you_. The last one, perhaps, he should say. This is the last chance he will ever have, after all.

The words stay caught on the roof of his mouth, and his heavy sigh is all that breaks the silence.

By the time they reach the first few trees that mark the border between realms, the sun has sunk enough for colours to bleed across the sky like wildflowers, as if it is dragging the all the brightness out of the dimming world and placing them on extravagant display. Rosa stares up at them, face clear.

“I’m glad,” she says, coming to a halt, “that my last glimpse of the human world will be of this.”

“It’ll be the same there, won’t it?” Balthazar replies, and she shrugs.

“I have no idea. Perhaps a retreated realm will be totally alien to all that we know. There is a reason we’ll have no cell reception.”

Balthazar wonders, briefly, if it would have hurt more to keep texting her when there would never be any visits to look forward to, if every message would feel as gutwrenching as this goodbye.

“I hope some things stay the same,” he says, as if that will make this goodbye any easier. Then, because the sun is still sinking, the time they have unravelling between them carelessly, “I love you, Rosa.”

In these last few days, he has said those words more than in his entire life. He feels filled to bursting with the word, all the love he has or will possess bubbling in his chest and warming it until he feels as though he may melt or burn or crack.

Rosa stares at him for one taut moment, and his heart speeds. Her eyes are wide, and, as he watches, something seems to _break_ in them, something fragile, barely held together with sheer will and years of experience. She lunges forward, graceful as ever, arms wrapping around him and holding him tightly to her.

Balthazar has never seen her break before.

He hugs her back, holding tightly to her shirt, and buries his face in her shoulder. For a moment, they both breathe. Then she whispers, right in his ear, “Oh, Balthazar.”

Balthazar remembers what she said, that people are not made of other people, and he thinks, _that doesn’t make this hurt any less_. He is not losing a part of himself, but he is losing his sister, the first person he ever loved. There is no quick cure for a pain like that.

“I love you, too,” Rosa says, and her voice quavers over the words. Balthazar breathes in sharply and blinks into her dampening shoulder and pretends his hands aren’t trembling at her back. He will save this memory, too—trap it in a song, caught between lyrics that he can write down and remember and keep for eons, even when all he knows passes away. “I thought I had loved until the very extent of my soul, before you came along,” she continues. “I’m sorry our time was so short.”

Balthazar breathes, shaky, and shuts his eyes.  “I’m sorry, too.”

She only holds him closer.

The forest is caught between day and night when she pulls away. Gloaming, Balthazar thinks it’s called. Those few moments when all is suspended between two states of being, teetering on the edge of change.

“I need to leave,” Rosa says, and her face is as wet as his, voice strained.

“I’ll miss you.” The words ache to leave him.

Rosa smiles, and it is soft and sad and small. “And I you.” She steps back once, then twice. “Goodbye, Balthazar.”

Balthazar breathes and swallows and blinks through blurring vision. He wants his last sight of Rosa to be clear, not tearstained and hazy like an old photograph. “Goodbye, Rosa.”

Rosa turns away, and walks into the forest, and he watches her until the branches all blur into the grey of twilight and she is no longer visible between them. His cheeks are wet and his shoulder might be too, and his arms and chest ache from the loss of her. Balthazar thinks, _I could change my mind, here_ , and dismisses the notion in the same moment. This is his decision. This is his pain and his joy and his life, in all its moments.

He goes home.


	20. Epilogue

“Can I look now? Are you decent?”

Balthazar glances at Peter, currently sitting on Balthazar’s bed, making a big show of covering his eyes with his hands and clearly fighting back a smile. Balthazar snorts out a laugh, almost fights down the sudden surge of fondness in his throat before he remembers he doesn’t really have to anymore. “No, never. I’ll never be decent.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter takes his hands off his eyes and grins goofily, not bothering to hold it back. He’s smiled a lot like that in this past week, but Balthazar still isn’t quite used to it. Every time he sees it, his heart trembles helplessly in his ribcage.

“You tell me.” Balthazar looks down at himself. “How fancy am I supposed to get for my own birthday, really? I mean, it’s my birthday, right? I feel like that should give me a right to decide what to wear. Or what not to wear, as it may be.”

Peter’s eyebrows shoot up. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about going out there naked. I mean, not that I’d complain about it, per se, but – “

“You know what I mean,” Balthazar says, sitting down next to Peter on the bed. “And what about you? Don’t you need to get ready too? Or are you just going to stay here and tease me about everything I do?”

“Teasing, I’ll have you know, is at the top of the list of official ‘boyfriend duties’. And please. I woke up like this.”

“Boyfriend duties,” Balthazar repeats. He can’t help but smile.

“Listen,” Peter says, seriously, “we could be dating for a thousand years, and I still wouldn’t be tired of using that word about us.”

Not that they’d have the option to date a thousand years, really. Balthazar decisively does not think about that. “I prefer the term significant other, myself.”

Peter grins again, softer this time. He takes Balthazar’s hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing gently. “You can call me whatever you’d like. Within reason, of course.”

Balthazar smiles, letting his thumb graze over Peter’s knuckles. “Petey?”

“Within  _ reason _ , Balthazar.”

Laughing, Balthazar leans in and kisses Peter on the lips. He can feel Peter’s mouth under his bursting into a smile. It’s thrilling, a little, that he can do this whenever they both want to now, that he can just lean in and kiss the boy that he loves without feeling the need to be guilty about it.

They break apart, and Peter kisses him one last time on the forehead, lips warm and comforting against his skin, before pulling away. He doesn’t retreat entirely, though, just keeps himself close to Balthazar and squeezes his hand again. “You ready for your birthday?”

Balthazar opens his mouth to answer, and finds he can’t, not exactly. He closes his mouth, glances over at Peter to let him know that he’s thinking. It’s a more complicated question than he thought it could be. But how could it not be, when he’s spent the greater part of a year dreading his own birthday as a deadline instead of anticipating it as something worth celebrating? He’s only had a week to get used to the idea that he doesn’t have to be scared of deadlines anymore, not the serious kind that transcends mortal anxieties. It will be months, perhaps, years, before he can accept that his choice, this right here, is his reality, now and for the rest of time.

But, of course, turning his thoughts toward that direction is a mistake, because as soon as he does, he remembers Rosa, a whole world apart from him along with the rest of his people he gave up. This is not the first birthday he will have to celebrate without her, but there will not be a next time for them.

She would have planned something amazing for his birthday, if he let her. If they had the choice to.

“Are you okay, Balthazar?” Peter says quietly.

He looks at Peter. “Yeah. Sorry.” He exhales. “Just... a bit of a loaded question, is all.”

“Yeah, I understand.” Peter leans into Balthazar, resting his head on his shoulder. The weight of him is solid, and warm. “How about this – are you ready for the day?”

The thing is, though, despite what he’s lost, despite the pain, he can’t regret this. He can’t regret staying; this choice was worth everything, all the good and all the bad.

Balthazar turns his head slightly and presses a kiss to the top of Peter’s head. “Ready to spend it with you.”

Peter’s fingers tighten around his own. “Cheeseball.”

Balthazar laughs, leaning his head against Peter’s. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

Peter hums in response. “You know, I still have my present to give to you? Don’t let me forget.”

Balthazar chooses to ignore this comment. “Come on, let’s get to lunch. Ben and Freddie are probably waiting.”

“Yeah, for the take out, maybe.” Still, they both stand up, and almost instinctively Balthazar turns toward Peter to look at him one last time. Peter smiles down at him, bright and wonderfully, incandescently happy.

“What?” Balthazar says, unable to fight back his own smile. What strength does he have against a sight as blinding as that?

Peter shakes his head. His smile does not fade away. “Love you, Balth Jones. Thanks for being patient with me.”

“You’re the one who’s being patient with  _ me _ .”

“Whatever.” Peter reaches up and smooths Balthazar’s collar down, his fingers lingering around his neck. His touch sends Balthazar’s skin tingling. “Let’s go.”

He lets go of Balthazar’s hand and pulls him into his side as if Balthazar was made to fit there. Instinctively, Balthazar’s arm comes up to cradle Peter’s back. They walk out of the room like that, tangled in each other’s arms and ready for a day Balthazar never really believed would come until now.

“Hey!” Ben calls as soon as Peter and Balthazar appear in the living room. “It’s your birthday! Happy birthday!”

He’d done the same just that morning, and led the flat in a dangerously off-tune rendition of  _ Happy Birthday _ that had made Balthazar hide his face in Peter’s neck to hide his blush. It is odd to think that he had been dreading this day for so long.

Still, when Balthazar sits at the table with his flatmates, he feels as though there should be an empty place beside him. Rosa had apologised, once, for missing a birthday, and hadn’t missed another for the next twelve years. He will spend all his remaining birthdays without her by his side.

Peter smiles and takes his hand, half-caught in a conversation with Freddie about take out and tips given for climbing stairs, and Balthazar thinks,  _ this is worth it _ . He smiles, and it feels entirely genuine. This, all of this, is worth it.

Eventually, after their food arrives and Ben insists on another round of singing – “It’s his birthday! We need to shower him with love!”—the conversation fades into occasional sentences between bites and snickers over muffled jokes. Freddie looks at her phone every few minutes, flushing brightly when Peter winks at her.

“Shut up,” she mutters. “We’re just texting.”

“I said nothing,” he protests. “Balthazar, babe, did I say anything?”

Balthazar shrugs. “I heard nothing.”

Freddie’s phone buzzes again, and she picks it up to reply immediately.

“Fred has a  _ girlfriend _ ,” Peter sings, and Balthazar is suddenly struck by how much he’s been missing.

“No!” Freddie gasps. “Oh my god, like you’re one to talk.”

“I,” Peter says, “am very happily in a relationship with our dear Balthazar, here. What’s your point?”

Freddie crosses her arms. “You were pining for, like, an entire year.”

“It’s true,” Ben nods. “You were.”

Peter blushes, then, as if that wasn’t something Balthazar already knew. “I’m going to have to listen to your girlfriend going on about you endlessly, now,” he says, changing the subject back.

Freddie’s eyes widen. “You’re moving in with Jaquie?”

Peter grins. “So you admit it.”

“Shut up. Balthazar, you’re going to be moving in with Kit next year, right? How are he and Jaquie going to deal with having either an extra person or no roommate all the time?”

Peter narrows his eyes at her. “We’re not  _ that _ sickening.”

Ben snorts, swallowing. “This is like some cheesy romcom ending,” he says. “Which I love, by the way. But like, is there anything cheesier?”

Balthazar shrugs. “Well, we are all going our different ways,” he says.

“Well, yeah,” Ben says. “But like, we’re all happy, you know?”

“Yeah,” Balthazar agrees, and leans into Peter, who kisses his forehead and holds him tight to him, grinning.

“You are officially that sickening,” Freddie says, a moment before her phone buzzes again. Peter snorts.

Ben smiles. “I’m going to miss this. Us.”

Freddie nods. “Me, too.” She turns to Ben, smile growing on her face a little sadder than his. “You’re an awesome friend, you know.”

Ben’s smile softens. “So are you,” he replies. “I love you, Freds.”

“I love you too, Ben,” she grins back.

This easy exchange of love, casual and soft and pure, settles warmly in Balthazar’s stomach, crawls up his ribcage. He wonders if he will ever reach the point at which he can say those words so simply and looks forward to that day with all that he is.

“So,” Peter says, after another moment, when everyone has turned back to their meals. “We’re not going to let this be our last meal together or anything, are we?”

Ben shakes his head. “No, never. We’ll have, like, reunions. After I get settled back into Auckland and Freddie comes back from her parents’ and you guys settle into your new flats, we’ll figure something out.”

“Good,” Peter grins. “We’re not going to lose this.”

Balthazar smiles. “I feel like this calls for a song,” he says.

Ben brightens. “Will you let us sing  _ Happy Birthday _ again?”

Balthazar feels like he should be wincing, but he finds himself too happy to even try. “Just let me grab my guitar,” he says. When he returns from his room with it and settles back down, he plays with the strings. “This is something I wrote this week.”

“It’s your birthday,” Freddie points out. “Shouldn’t we be giving  _ you _ songs?”

Balthazar’s eyebrows lift. “You want to try?” he asks, and Freddie scowls mock-angrily. He clears his throat, strums the first chord. “Anyway, it’s called  _ Break Dem Rules _ .”

“Nice,” Peter murmurs.

Balthazar begins to play and does not try to disappear into the music. He lets the chords wash over him and mingle with his lyrics, and his eyes catch on their smiles, on the sparks in their eyes.

“Follow your heart, ‘cause it knows best,” he sings, and it is a lesson he has been learning and learning and learning for years, and here it is, laid out in front of him. Here is his choice, and here is his joy, and his love. Here is his home.

He plays through to the end of the song, and his cheeks feel as though they might split from smiling, and he thinks,  _ this is worth it _ .

As soon as he strums the last chord, the flat erupts into applause.

“Balthy, you’re gonna make me cry,” Ben says, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

“Please don’t cry, mate,” Peter says.

“I’ve decided I’m going to stay forever so I can always listen to Balth’s music,” Freddie says.

Balthazar laughs. “That’s a bit hard, isn’t it?”

“Hey,” Freddie says, raising her eyebrows, “we’re already halfway there.”

The reference to his immortality, strangely enough, doesn’t make his gut prickle, as it might have months ago. He laughs at the comment, and it’s enough.

“Okay, but am I the only one who thinks this is super catchy?” Ben says. “I’m envisioning a dance routine. Synchronized. Lots of spinning. Ooh, and on the beach! Oh man, it’d be absolutely brilliant, can we do it?”

“No,” Peter and Freddie say simultaneously. Ben pouts. Balthazar laughs again, freely and openly, and there’s a lightness in his chest he’s almost surprised he feels. It’s foreign, but right where it belongs all the same.

“So are we just about ready to head out, then?” Freddie says, glancing at her watch. “I don’t want Kit and Chelsey and Paige to be waiting on us for too long.”

“Wait, wait, I need to give Balth his birthday present,” Peter says, glancing almost shyly toward Balthazar. His heart kicks in his chest, unbidden. Even now, Peter finds small and persistent ways to catch Balthazar by surprise.

“Wow, you got him an actual  _ present _ ?” Ben says, wiggling his eyebrows. “What an overachiever.”

“You know what, Ben – “

“You go on, then, Peter,” Freddie says, knowing glint in her eyes. “We’ll clean up in here, no worries.”

“Yup, just don’t take too long,” Ben says, and scrunches up his face in an effort to wink.

Peter snorts. “I’ll be sure not to. Come on, Balthazar.” He takes ahold of Balthazar’s hand, casually and easily, almost as if without thinking. “Let’s go outside.”

Balthazar quirks an eyebrow. “Outside?”

“It’s more romantic,” Peter answers, grinning unashamedly.

“Oh my  _ god _ , Peter,” Ben says.

“And also away from the peanut gallery,” Peter says pointedly over his shoulder. They walk out the door and sit on the front steps. It’s beautiful outside. The sun is bright and warm, and there’s not a cloud in the sky. It’s the kind of day that Balthazar loves, the kind of day that makes him feel like he belongs to it. The kind of day that ushers in beginnings, and makes you glad for it.

“So what did you have to show me?” Balthazar says, knocking his shoulder into Peter’s gently. He isn’t holding a bag or anything, so it must be small enough to fit into his pocket.

“Um, so first of all it’s not, uh, actually something you can hold, per se,” he says. “Actually, you kind of have to hear it?” Balthazar can feel Peter’s hand shaking in his grip. Is he nervous, for some reason?

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says quietly, squeezing his fingers gently. He wonders what Peter means. Did he write him a song? “Go on.”

Peter takes in a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, nodding decisively. “I’ve been working on this thing – well, it started out as a class assignment, which I know sounds kinda lame, but then I just kept on tweaking it and rewriting it and – long story short, I don’t actually know if it’s any good, but I’ve been working on it for a couple months now, and, like, you know, it’s the thought that counts, right? And I was going to make, like, this huge romantic gesture on your birthday, which is – okay, it might be kind of pointless now, but it’s already done, and I would hate for you to never hear it – “

“Peter,” Balthazar says.

The air rushes out of Peter’s lungs. “Yeah?”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” Balthazar says, and he can’t stop himself; he grins.

Peter laughs softly, breathily. “Okay, okay, sorry, I’ll just – okay. Here goes.”

One more deep breath in, another out.

Then, he speaks.

“How oft when thou, my music, music play’st, upon that blessed wood…”

It’s not a song, Balthazar realizes with a jolt. It’s a poem.

And it’s beautiful, on Peter’s lips. It’s rhythmical and lulling, gentle and entrancing.  His delivery is honest, and his eyes, never wavering from Balthazar’s, are clear. Balthazar can feel the words he says strike somewhere deep inside him, embedding themselves into his very core and refusing to let go.

“Give them thy fingers,” Peter says, solemnly, “me thy lips to kiss.”

There’s a certain perfection to the stillness that comes after hearing something like that, motionless and silent in Balthazar’s insides. He finds, astonishingly, that he has no words to answer Peter’s.

“So,” Peter says, voice low, “what did you think?”

The question is enough to jar Balthazar out of his trance. He lets himself act and move and feel without thinking too hard about it. He leans forward and catches Peter’s mouth with his own, gently. It’s long and soft and sweet, their kiss. It says a lot of things Balthazar has trouble saying out loud, and a lot of things he just doesn’t want to. It’s an honest kiss, and it’s one with no pain or weight or terrible history attached to it - just a promise of happiness he’ll keep for as long as he can. And it’s enough. It’s everything.

When they pull away, Peter stares at Balthazar, wide-eyed. “What – ?”

“You told me to give you my lips to kiss.” Balthazar feels a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and he lets it take hold, spreading across his face like the warm happiness spreading in his chest, across his ribcage and down his veins, to the tips of his fingers.

“Oh.” Peter’s mouth forms a little surprised circle, as if he could be surprised at anything Balthazar does, at this point.

Well, maybe he can be. Maybe Balthazar can be surprised, too.

“I loved it,” Balthazar says, honestly. “I love you, Peter.”

Peter finally lets himself smile, big and wide and true. “Love you too. Happy birthday, bro.”

Silence, for one moment.

“Did you just – “

“Wish you happy birthday? Why, yes, Balth, you are, in fact, turning nineteen today – “

“ – Call me  _ bro _ ?”

“You  _ are _ my best mate,” Peter says. The tilt of his lips, now, is playful.

Balthazar rolls his eyes, but he can’t stop himself from smiling, either. He’s been smiling so much these past few minutes his cheeks hurt.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he says. He squeezes Peter’s hand again. In wordless agreement, they stand up. It’s true, Balthazar thinks, truer than anything else he could say. He wouldn’t choose anything other than this, this moment, right here, right now. He doesn’t think there was ever a point, really, where he might have. The trouble was never about the destination; it was always about getting there.

“Are you ready?” Peter says, smiling endlessly at him.

And  _ here _ is a place he wants to stay for as long as he can, as much as that’s worth.

“Always,” Balthazar answers.

They walk back inside, hand in hand and where they belong. The beauty of the day won’t last forever, but it’ll last long enough; the sun shines on.

 

  
  
_ “I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done. After eight months of work, 130k words, and our fair share of tears, we're finally done. Wow. No, we can't believe it either.
> 
> A few notes:
> 
> -For fun, you can check out the origin story - screenshots of how this whole clusterfuck started! - [here](http://pokeallthelawyers.tumblr.com/post/145779474074/presenting-the-origin-story-of-one-lifetime-with), on our shiny brand new collab blog. How's that for shameless plugs? From now on we'll be linking all of our future projects and various fun bts things over there so maybe go check it out, if you're so inclined.
> 
> -OLWY is done but we're not quite finished with this verse. We currently have four spinoffs planned, each centering around a specific character or relationship. None of them will be direct sequels; we have decided to leave the rest of the story up to you.
> 
> -Thank you to [Crystal](http://niuniujiaojiao.tumblr.com) for making such beautiful edits for this fic!
> 
> -And a huge thank you to you, if you've made it this far. When we first started this thing, we had no idea how big it would become. It is, in fact, twice as long and five chapters more than we anticipated, which is nothing short of insane. And we couldn't have done this without all of your support. So thank you. This has been an incredible experience from start to finish and we are infinitely grateful for every person who has read our work.
> 
> That's all for now. We hope you've enjoyed this fic as much as we've enjoyed writing it. Until next time!


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